Fixer Upper
by lostrocket
Summary: Scarlett O'Hara Kennedy and her husband Frank flip houses for a living. When Rhett Butler returns to Atlanta, he hires Scarlett to renovate his new home. Modern AU, rated T for strong language and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

Scarlett O'Hara Kennedy was pissed off.

"Answer your fucking phone, Frank," she muttered under her breath. Her outgoing ring, blaring from the speaker, echoed off the tile walls of the empty bathroom. The damn coward was probably eyeing his caller ID and wondering if it would be worse to take her call now or face her later when she got home.

Ring-ring- "Hey, honey," said her husband, his voice already wheedling and annoying as hell.

"What the hell is this, Frank," Scarlett spat without preamble. He would know what she was talking about.

"Now, sugar," he said, and she ground her teeth together. He knew she hated that! "The stuff you picked out - well the salesman said-"

"Of course he did, Frank," she ground out. "That's why he's a salesman. He gets paid to sell us crap we don't need for more money than it's worth. I picked out the tile and the vanity, and you couldn't even follow through on a simple errand!"

"Sugar-" Frank tried again, but there wasn't much that could stop Scarlett once she started on a tirade. Certainly Frank's timid interjections didn't stand a chance.

"Frank you know we have a tight budget on this one. We paid too much and that roof damage set us back. We don't have the money for you to throw it away like this! The profit margin is already razor thin. Buy what I picked out next time or by God, Frank, I'm walking away from the next one and you can dig yourself out of your own hole and sell it without me!"

Scarlett pressed the button to end the phone call. Unsatisfied, she turned and lobbed the phone at the door - she had enough mind not to risk it against the newly tiled wall, at least. The Otterbox should protect it. After all, her penchant for throwing things was basically the reason she had it - though of course, she'd put on her best simper, batted her eyes at Frank, and told him how clumsy she was to justify the expense.

She'd thought she could trust him by now, after they'd lost money on the last flip because he'd deviated from the list she'd given him while she was at home with their newborn daughter. Apparently he hadn't learned anything. He couldn't be trusted worth a damn, and now that Ella was a few months old Scarlett would have to take a fully active role again.

She sighed and retrieved her phone from the floor. It didn't seem any worse after bearing the brunt of her temper. She scooped her purse off the counter of the too-expensive vanity and jammed her phone inside.

The rest of the house was fine. She'd placed the order for the kitchen cabinets and counter so that was at it should be. Paint had covered the flaws in the off-the-shelf cabinets, and the scratch-and-dent appliances looked well enough now that they were installed. The midgrade granite tied everything together so the kitchen appeared far more expensive than it was. The paints she had picked were up on the walls, all the new trim, carpet, and laminate was done. She could walk through one more time tomorrow with the staging company and figure out the furniture rental and they'd be ready for the open house next week.

The bathroom was a small overage, at least. As long as they hit their asking price - which was more than fair - their profit wouldn't take much of a hit. Much more of a hit, that is - the new roof had already dinged them. She'd have to keep an eye on Frank once the demolition was done at the new property. Just as she'd done for the last two years.

It got to be annoying, having a husband who was more like a second child. Third child, that was. She still wasn't used to Ella's existence. Poor girl looked just like her father, too. Her hair was so thin it was almost colorless, but in the right light it was definitely ginger. And her scrunched monkey face looked like exactly like Frank's, weak chin and all. He really should try to grow a beard, Scarlett thought. She'd discouraged it because there was no way having even more washed out ginger hair could do him any favors, but maybe it would be worth the tradeoff. But no, because the thought of kissing him with a beard made her stomach heave.

Then again, so did the thought of kissing Frank at all. Thank God for Ella on that account. He was so wrapped up in the baby he barely noticed her anymore. And she could cling to the excuse of having given birth for at least a little bit longer. At some point she would have to do something about the fact that being intimate with her husband was the very last thing on earth she desired - but not yet. She could think about that later.

Scarlett checked to make sure the back door was still locked, crossed through the empty house and locked the front door behind her, then slid into the old Cabrio parked out front and put it in gear. Another flip, another profit, another layer of protection between her and the disaster that had threatened them all not so very long ago. Yet somehow she doubted she'd sleep any better that night than she had in the last three years.

"Frank, we're home," Scarlett called out as she tossed her keys on the counter. They rattled loud enough to drown out any response he might have made. More carefully, she set Ella's car seat down on the kitchen table. Luckily, the baby had fallen asleep in the car after Scarlett picked her up from Pitty's, and once Ella slept Scarlett wasn't sure anything could rouse her. Scarlett had been that way, once.

Wade had run in ahead of his mother and half-sister and Scarlett could already hear the muffled noise of his bedroom door closing. Putting her palms flat on the table's wood surface, she leaned her weight onto her hands. She let out a puff of breath, trying to blow a lock of hair out of her eyes, and studied her sleeping infant.

Frank was home, she knew. Probably avoiding her, worried she'd take up the issue of his blowing the budget at the house again, but Scarlett was already done with that. Frank couldn't be trusted and that was all. She simply wouldn't give him any room to maneuver at the next house, or any of their flips after that. Yelling at him wouldn't do any good, he'd just look at her in that disappointed way that both angered and shamed her.

She should be nicer to Frank, really she should. He wouldn't have even married her if she hadn't manipulated her way into his heart - he'd been all but engaged to her own sister. Well it wasn't her problem if he'd lost his head over her; and besides, after how many years he hadn't done more than put a stupid "promise ring" on Sue's finger anyway. And if she'd pushed Sue into forcing the issue, the rest of the family would have still been hung out to dry - no savings, no money. Sue wouldn't have made sure they could keep a roof over their heads. Suellen's first priority was, had always been, and would always be Suellen.

A spit bubble glistened, then popped, on Ella's pink lips. Scarlett dropped her head. Her mind was getting locked into these circles lately - endlessly going back over what she had done, wondering if there had been an unseen alternative, some other choice she could have made that would have kept her family from ending up homeless and not tied her to a man she was merely fond of - and even that lukewarm feeling had begun to founder. She hadn't come up with anything yet and it was a useless exercise that served only to aggravate her hair trigger temper.

"Sugar?" came Frank's timid voice from the direction of the living room.

"Yes, Frank," she sighed. Another evening going through the motions. "Would you get Ella out of that?" Carelessly, she offered her cheek for his routine buss, before crossing the kitchen to the pantry. "You can put her in the crib and help Wade with his homework while I get dinner started." Without turning around, she listened to the rustle and clatter of Frank unhooking Ella from the car seat, then his soft voice cooing at the baby as his footsteps faded away.

If she didn't lay out every task, one step at a time, Frank would hover around her constantly, unable to figure out what to do with himself. But with clear expectations, he could be reliable - to a point. How he had ever managed to run a successful business, Scarlett could not say. Certainly she had expected more from him.

"Well, that makes two of us," she muttered out loud, grabbing a jar of spaghetti sauce off the shelf.

* * *

 _AN: And now for something completely different: a new modern AU. This is not a faithful translation of events and characters, but more a loose inspiration that - I hope you agree - retains something of their characterization as they move through a modern world._

 _I have rated this story overall T for adult language, adult themes, and some sexual content. Additional warnings will be clearly stated when necessary._

 _Credits: Sorry to Julie and Mark Steines for stealing their photo and slapping David Gandy's head on Mark's body :) All characters were created by Margaret Mitchell, though you may find them quite changed here._

 _Fixer Upper is not mine, and this story has next-to-nothing in common with Chip and Jo (Flip or Flop and Flipping Las Vegas were much stronger influences). However, I do plan to update on Tuesdays :) (It's already Tuesday where I am so here we go)_


	2. Chapter 2

_With apologies to anyone in Atlanta for all the things I'm bound to get wrong. Artistic license. This story takes place circa 2011 but I'm not being careful on whether or not any of the businesses I name were open at that time. I am being careful with other details - the Georgia Peach is a cocktail currently on the menu at Big Sky._

* * *

Sagging with relief, Scarlett closed the door behind the last of the open house guests and leaned against it. The afternoon had been a success, she was sure. No immediate offers, but her years of experience as a realtor told her at least three families would be following up with their own agents in the next few days. If they were lucky, they might even get above asking price - maybe enough to offset the extra spend on the new roof. And on Frank's bathroom upgrades, she thought, twisting her mouth.

Scarlett allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts, then pushed upright and bustled away from the door. She had to clean up the wine and snacks in the kitchen and get the house quickly put back to rights so she could head out to Buckhead for the YPN happy hour at Big Sky. Frank wouldn't ever think to network, but more than one lead on a good deal had come her way from these events.

When the wine and food were tucked away in the fridge and cupboards - she'd leave it all at the house until she was sure they wouldn't need to have a second open house - Scarlett went to the master bedroom to change her clothes. Her open house dress, with its wide shoulder straps and knee-length, flared skirt, was pretty and professional, the nude patent leather flats were practical for a long afternoon walking the floor plan over and over, and the outfit wouldn't have been totally out of place at the happy hour - but it just wasn't her. She hung the dress up in the closet and zipped a garment bag over it, then tucked the flats in an outside pocket. In just her underwear and nylons, she checked her hair and makeup in the bathroom mirror before stepping into a tight black sheath and black patent shoes with a silver spiked heel. Now she felt more like herself. With her black hair and pale complexion, she knew she could wear all black to stunning effect. The simple color palette allowed her pale green eyes to truly shine, with a heightened contrast that darkened them almost to emerald.

She knew how to dress to look irresistible. Hadn't she married Frank out from under the nose of her own sister? That had not been an accident.

Slinging the garment bag over one shoulder and her purse over the other, Scarlett locked the door behind her and went out to her car. The garment bag went in the trunk, the purse she tossed onto the passenger seat. Sliding into the driver's side, she waited while the top of the Cabrio slowly went up into place. She loved driving with the top down, but she didn't want to screw her hair up now.

It would take close to an hour to get out to Buckhead in the rush hour traffic - luckily, she was close. Scarlett gritted her teeth and with one eye on the crowded freeway, pulled up Frank's number.

"Hey, honey," said Frank. "How was the open house?"

Scarlett took a deep breath and tried to summon patience.

"It went great, Frank," she answered, and was pleased that the reply sounded friendly and not curt. "I think we'll have an offer for sure. How did things go today?"

She had left Frank at home with both children for the first time since Ella's birth. Frank loved kids - and thank God for that, at least, since He knew she didn't care for them all that much. Oh, they could be cute and lovable in their own way. But if she had made different - better - choices, she would have preferred not to have had them. Far too late for that.

"We're all just fine here, sugar," Frank answered brightly. How many damn times did she have to tell him not to call her that? Scarlett swallowed so as to stop grinding her teeth. "Ella's doing great with the bottle, and Wade's been over playing with Beau Wilkes since after lunch."

Scarlett took a breath and waited - but the pang that had once accompanied the thought of Beau Wilkes' existence didn't come.

"Is he staying there for dinner?"

"Oh, uhm, I don't know?" Scarlett rolled her eyes.

"Call Melanie and ask if you need to go get him. He should be eating dinner soon. If Mel wants to feed him, she'll let you know."

"Of course, yes, yes, I will." She caught herself beginning to grind her teeth again.

"He doesn't need a bath tonight. And make sure he did his math homework."

"We did all his homework. I signed his permission slip-"

"What? What permission slip?"

"The school sent one last week? For a trip to the zoo?"

"He didn't tell me about that."

"Oh, well, sugar, I'm sure it just slipped his mind."

Scarlett frowned. It had not slipped Wade's mind. Her kid was sharp - more timid than she would have liked, but he noticed and remembered everything. For some reason, he hadn't wanted to ask her about the field trip. She didn't understand how his little mind worked, exactly, but she knew he had been afraid to show her the permission slip. Scarlett let her eyes close for just a moment despite the traffic around her. Wade wasn't exactly afraid of her - but -

"You know how it is with little boys," Frank was going on. No, I don't, she thought, and I doubt you do, either. "He probably got so excited about something else that he just forgot. But it's all taken care of now, don't you worry."

"Thank you, Frank," Scarlett answered with heartfelt honesty.

"Sure, sure," Frank mumbled. Scarlett could just picture the blush on his cheeks now, clashing with his washed out hair. A little bit of gratitude dried up and turned back into annoyance.

"Shit! I missed my exit. I better go, Frank-"

"When will you be home?" he cut in, and the wheedling whine in his voice used up the last of her goodwill.

"I don't know," she answered curtly, pulling off at the next exit. "After Wade's in bed, for sure."

"Oh...okay."

"These events are important to the business." Were they really going to start in on the same old arguments again so soon? The immediate aftermath of Ella's birth had meant a respite from this, at least.

"Yes, I know, of course."

"I'll let you know when I leave."

"Okay," Frank said meekly.

"Don't forget to call Mel. She'll probably keep him for dinner but if she doesn't, you'd better get something started."

"Okay," Frank repeated.

Tell him I love him, Scarlett thought, but the words clogged in her throat. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, sugar."

When the call had disconnected, Scarlett slammed her palm on the steering wheel, accidentally triggering the horn. The loud blare drowned out her yell, "And don't call me sugar!"

Well before the end of the two-hour event, Scarlett had had more than enough. She felt old around most of these people now. At 26, she was of an age with - and actually a little younger than - most of the "Young Professionals"; but not many of them had two children at home. The ladder of upward success, whether corporate or entrepreneurial, meant most of these ostensible peers wouldn't have children for several more years - if at all. A few of the older people had babies at home - but if anyone else her age had a child as old as seven, as old as Wade, she hadn't met them. And she was sure she knew everyone in the Young Professionals Network. She had made it her business to know them.

Scarlett was not an introvert, but these events took a toll on her nonetheless. People were not one of her core competencies. She was much more at home poring over the budgets for her flipping projects than keeping up the neverending small talk at cocktail hours and seminars. She had mastered the formula, but the effort it took to control her natural impulses drained her. It took an effort of will not to call out the morons on their own stupidity.

The patio at Big Sky was crowded with young men and women, most of whom were in all black just like herself. Scattered pops of color came from the men's ties and, on the more pretentious metrosexuals - or the gay men - pocket squares. India and Honey Wilkes, she had noticed, both stood out in brightly colored, excessively low-cut dresses. Anything for attention from those two man-hungry cats.

Scarlett drained the last of her white wine and abandoned the empty glass on a nearby high top table. She needed a break. Up the stairs to the second level which was nearly empty, the dinner crowd having mostly gone home with only the most dedicated drinking crowd taking their places. She pushed her way through a small knot of people that had congregated around the door, of fucking course, on her way to the bar inside. She could have one beer, enjoyed alone in the cool evening air, before she forced herself to make the drive back into the city, to home.

At the bar, Scarlett lifted onto her toes just a little bit and tipped herself forward to better display her cleavage and catch the bartender's prompt attention. Slow night but there were still two people behind the bar, and she eased back down on her heels as the female bartender spotted her first. Rudely, the woman barely made eye contact with her as she came over, but Scarlett was undeterred and opened her mouth, ready to make her order-

"One Georgia Peach and a bourbon, neat," a male voice spoke over her shoulder, low and rough like the purr of a tiger.

Oh, my God.

* * *

 _Author Note! So many "you're back!" messages - like Evita says...the truth is, I never left you. I am just mostly working on the same story I've mentioned in other notes here and there, sometimes it goes more slowly than others, there's been a lot of research involved, and it's striving to be a long one. I've been working on it for over a year and can make no promises on when I'll finally finish. Luckily in the meantime there are still shorter and faster plot bunnies that I'm still managing to catch, and this is the first one of those that I finished. It's definitely a departure for me so if you stick around, thank you in advance!_


	3. Chapter 3

Scarlett turned her head and looked into the black eyes of Mr. Rhett Butler. "You still like them sweet like that, Scarlett?" he asked without preamble.

"I have to drive home," she snapped.

Rhett shrugged, a liquid movement of broad shoulders beneath a fine, obviously expensive shirt. She could see the muscles in his chest move too and hastily swung back around to the bar to hide her blush.

"I'll drive you."

"And leave my car here? No, thank you."

"Make it a Diet Coke," he said to the bartender.

"I'll have a Purple Haze," she corrected sharply.

"I thought you had to drive home?" Rhett murmured. She didn't have to turn her head to guess that his eyebrow was raised.

"I can have a beer, and I don't need you to police me."

"Of course not. My apologies, Miss O'Hara."

Scarlett opened her mouth to correct him - Mrs. Kennedy, now - and snapped it shut again. She didn't pause to consider the impulse.

The bartender had turned away to pour their drinks. Scarlett squared her shoulders and looked at Rhett.

"Are you back in town then?" How many years had it been since she had seen Rhett Butler? Not since she had married Frank, back when she had first lived in Atlanta. At least three years.

"I am." The bartender returned with their drinks and Rhett handed over his card. Scarlett decided it was not necessary to protest. If Rhett wanted to pay for her beer, she had no objections. He certainly had more money than he needed, anyway. "Shall we go outside?"

So much for having a drink in peace. But he had paid for it - and, she had to admit, it was nice to see Rhett. Providing he minded his manners, he could be pleasant company. "Thank you, Rhett," she said, offering the sweet smile that she knew showed her dimples. She could hear him chuckling under his breath as he followed her out to the deck where they grabbed a couple of chairs looking down on the dispersing YPN happy hour below.

By the time they were seated, Scarlett had decided to be pleasant. "How have you been, Rhett?" she asked, sipping the sweet-tart beer. "And where have you been keeping yourself?"

"Ah, here and there," he replied easily, with a languid flutter of his hand that was somehow as masculine as the rest of him. "Business in England, family in Charleston."

Yes, of course - she remembered hearing through the grapevine of connected families and old South aristocracy that Rhett's father had died in the last year or so. "I was so sorry to hear about your father," she offered, but Rhett shrugged again. She took another sip of beer.

"Don't be. I wasn't."

"Rhett!" she spluttered.

"What? I'm sorry to shock you, Scarlett. I had thought we could be frank with each other - but perhaps it's been too long and you aren't used to my bluntness anymore. I didn't care for the old fool, nor him for me. His death was the first time I've been home since he kicked me out at 18. There's never been any love lost between us," Rhett finished in a tone that almost - almost - sounded bitter. But such an indication of emotion might have shown him to be human, Scarlett thought. Couldn't allow that.

"So that's my news, my dear," Rhett said after a sip of his bourbon. "And you? You seem to be doing just fine now."

They had last seen each other just before she had moved back home with her father, her career as a realtor having completely floundered in the recession. Out of money, out of options. He had no idea of everything that had happened since then, and she wondered what she should tell him now.

"Oh, yes," she answered airily, still thinking rapidly. "Mighty fine. In fact, I bet I just sold another house today," she said, leaning forward with an avaricious gleam sparking in her green eyes. Though this time the movement was not calculated, she was immediately aware of the view she had offered. Rhett's black eyes went down to the tops of her breasts, generously bared by the dress and her posture, and traveled agonizingly slowly back to her face.

This was terrible. An utter disaster. His predatory gaze made knots tie and twist in her belly and heat pool between her thighs. The same reaction she had always had to Rhett Butler - and it had been trouble enough when she had been single. She was married now. Married to Frank! Disaster didn't even begin to cover it.

Scarlett quickly sat back in her chair. Rhett grinned. She glared.

"Congratulations," he said, again in that masculine purr. "So you've returned to the real estate business?"

"Sort of," Scarlett said. "I - we flip houses," she elaborated, answering his raised eyebrow. "And then I sell them."

"We?"

"Y-yes. Me and - and my husband."

She watched him closely as she said this, but to her disappointment Rhett's bland countenance betrayed no reaction at all. That did it then. She had never been quite sure what - if anything - was between them. And if the news of her marriage didn't inspire any reaction at all, it must have been nothing.

Well, she could handle that. It didn't matter to her.

"Who did you manage to drag to the altar?"

"Rhett!"

Rhett laughed and held up his hand, palm forward. "Don't shoot, my dear. I'm only joking. But tell me, who is he?"

"Frank Kennedy. Did you ever know him?" Rhett nodded but still she couldn't read anything in his expression. If he had known Frank, did he know about Frank's relationship with her sister? Was he surprised? "We got married two years ago. We - actually - well we have a baby now, a little girl. Ella."

"Congratulations," Rhett repeated, tipping his glass in her direction. Scarlett shifted uncomfortably on the metal mesh seat. She didn't know what she wanted for Ella's birth, but it wasn't exactly congratulations. She knew full well that she would rather Ella had never been born.

"Thank you," she said, and then they were both silent.

Scarlett turned slightly in her chair, pretending to look out across the patio and over Buckhead beyond. In truth, she studied Rhett from the corner of her eye. He didn't seem to be looking at her, either, but who knew? He looked well. Utterly unchanged, as if he hadn't aged a day in the years since she had last seen him. He was in his mid- to late thirties by now, maybe even as old as forty, and his thick hair was as black as ever. She would bet it wasn't dyed - for all his meticulous ways, he didn't strike her as the type to dye his hair. But she wouldn't put it past him to pluck, should any grey dare to grow. He was swarthy, especially dark on the underlit deck. His white shirt was crisp and unwrinkled, the slim cut fitting his trim torso and hugging his powerful shoulders without straining the material. Tailored, of course, just like the black slacks that skimmed his muscled thighs. He'd rolled the cuffs up, revealing taut forearms sprinkled with dark hair. He looked remarkably out of place in this trumped-up frat bar, come to think of it. Why would Rhett be here? But when had anything Rhett done ever made sense? She took another swig of her beer.

"Are you staying in Atlanta?"

"I intend to."

And that was it. Sometimes conversation with Rhett could be like pulling teeth. There was no middle ground with him - either he wouldn't shut up, or you couldn't get him to string more than two words together.

"Do you have a place here?"

"Hmmm." Rhett stirred. She turned to face him fully, noting a sudden gleam of interest in his eyes. "Actually, maybe you can help me with that."

"What - you mean, as your realtor? I sell houses, Rhett. I'm not interested in running all over town helping you find something." Especially not for Rhett. The man was so damned particular, she felt sure a realtor could show him every home for sale in Atlanta and the nearest five counties and never find anything that met his standards.

"Actually, I do have a place in mind. But you said you flip houses?"

"Uhmmm. Yes." Rhett's smile made her nervous.

"What would you say to a fixer upper? Pure profit, Scarlett," he goaded. "I'll buy the place, pay for everything, and pay you to handle...everything." His black eyes traveled her body again and she shivered.

Still, the idea was certainly attractive. Just imagine what she could do with the kind of budget Rhett Butler could give her! No cutting corners and pinching pennies. Her lips curved and Rhett grinned, too.

"I see the gleam of greed in your eyes, my dear. But no matter; I can afford you." Scarlett blinked. Had he really said that? She must have misheard, or misunderstood. "Do we have a deal?"

"How much?"

"Are you free tomorrow? I can show you the house, get your thoughts on it. We can talk about the money then. After you've had time to figure out just how to gouge me, right?"

"Rhett!"

But Rhett had thrown his head back and was laughing uproariously at his own joke, and his amusement was contagious. Scarlett joined him, and when they had both calmed down she lifted her glass and he touched the rim of his to hers with a clink.

"Deal," she said softly, and finished off the last of the beer.


	4. Chapter 4

"Wait, Scarlett! I don't want you to sue me if you fall and break your silly neck. Take my arm - and wear some more sensible shoes next time, will you?"

Scarlett offered Rhett a dimpled smile and slipped her arm through his, relieved for the extra support. Gingerly, she picked her way down the tumbled brick path at his side. Stilettos had not been the best choice, she had to admit. Normally she would have worn something more practical - flats, a boat shoe, even a pair of Keds - when going for the first look at a house she didn't know. You could never tell what you might find in some of the places they bought. But some perverse impulse had insinuated itself in her brain that morning, and she'd slipped on a pair of kelly green patent leather heels instead. With slim black pants and a black t-shirt, its gently scooping neckline just teasing at her collarbones, and her black hair twisted into a knot, the overall effect was striking in its simplicity.

Unless she stumbled and got red dust all over herself. Rhett's house was reached by a long brick path that stretched up from the street. Situated on Peachtree Circle within walking distance of at least two banks, she wondered which one Rhett was working for now.

Something had gone terribly wrong with the house itself. In a posh neighborhood where a cheap home went for over a million dollars, the houses tended to be well-kept. The brick path was cracked and disarrayed, a potential minefield for the slim heels of her shoes. More than once, it was only Rhett's support that kept her upright. Mercifully, he didn't laugh at her, but she felt sure if she turned her head she'd see mocking amusement on his dark face. He would be on his best behavior, though, as long as he wanted to butter her up.

The shingles were a dingy, nondescript color somewhere between grey and brown. Some of them were missing, many more hung askew. One of the tall main floor windows was even boarded up. The neighbors would be relieved when this place sold. The simple traditional façade was striking even with its flaws, which in addition to the obvious shingle and window problems included peeling paint on all the trim and the white columns that supported a flat portico over the front door. The front door, with its half-round transom, was on the right side of the house, two tall windows spaced across the façade to the left, and three shorter windows aligned on the second story above. An oval window trimmed in scroll work was centered in the front gable.

Rhett must have purchased the place already, despite what he had said the night before, for he used his own key to let them in - no realtor lockbox. For the most part, the exterior was genteelly shabby, only the single boarded-up window giving a hint to the possible extent of disrepair. Once inside the house Scarlett pulled up short. Rhett took another step and dropped her arm.

"Holy shit."

Rhett laughed. "I know. Charming, isn't it?"

"Why the hell did you buy this place, Rhett?"

"What can I say - the price was right."

"I hope that means it was a gift, because I'm not sure any price above 'free' could be worth it."

Kicking aside a pile of fabric - it looked like a wadded up, dirty bedsheet - Rhett walked from the hall and into a large front room still well-lit even with one of the windows boarded up. He stretched his arms wide and turned back to look at Scarlett, who took careful, mincing steps deeper into the house. "Don't you have any imagination, my dear? This house deserves to be beautiful again."

"Ugh, Rhett…" Scarlett muttered, dodging more debris - another bedsheet, maybe; definitely clothes and trash.

"I thought you did this for a living."

Scarlett shot him a glare from under her lashes. "I do. That doesn't mean I have to like the mess. And for god's sake, we buy trash heaps - not million dollar homes in Ansley Park. How did this place end up like this?"

"It's been empty for a year, at least. I think there might have been some uninvited guests."

"They're not still here, are they?"

Rhett gave her a pirate's grin, his black eyes gleaming. "I'm not sure. Shall we find out?"

Scarlett straightened up. "You're not serious." She crossed her arms over her chest when Rhett threw back his head and gave a great belly laugh. "I can leave right now, Rhett Butler-"

"Scarlett, no. My apologies. You're just - nevermind. No, no one's here, I'm sure of it. Shall I give you the full tour?"

"Come here and give me your arm again. I don't want to slip and break something."

"Of course not. I'm sure you'd sue me for every penny I have if I allowed that to happen."

The front room where they were standing was long, stretching probably more than half the depth of the house. A fireplace - nonfunctional, according to Rhett; problem undetermined just yet - was framed by two more floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall. This room led into a square room with another fireplace - probably a dining room, as the next room at the back of the house was a kitchen that had been updated at the nadir of 80s style. It was a little more generous than a galley, but narrow enough that the heavy dark cabinets did the space no favors. Scarlett eyed the two windows along the back wall - they could at least double that. The room needed more light. A large eat-in area off the kitchen had surprising sight lines all the way back to the front of the house. A too-narrow door led outside, but first Rhett led her back to the stairs and up to the second floor. The upstairs was a jumble of small bedrooms, true to the age of the house, but it was generously equipped with two bathrooms, and even a fireplace in one of the bedrooms. There was definitely something she could work with up there - knocking down at least one wall to make a generous master suite would still leave three other bedrooms. For guest rooms, or she supposed possibly an office, they would be plenty big.

The sloping lot allowed for a walk-out basement. The backyard was a tangle of grass, weeds, and overgrown shrubs. Rickety stairs went up to an equally questionable deck, which led them back into the kitchen.

"At least it doesn't smell like shit," Scarlett said candidly, eyeing the kitchen counter and deciding to keep a hold of her purse. "Or cat piss," she added. Both memorable smells she had encountered more than once. Perhaps these previous owners - or the squatters - had not had pets. But they had left more than enough trash behind, as well as some charmingly profane graffiti in the basement and two of the bedrooms.

"Thank God for small favors indeed," Rhett said, showing no concern at all and leaning casually against the cabinets with his elbow on the counter. Scarlett delicately wrinkled her nose and carefully didn't touch anything. "Will you help me?"

"For a price," she returned sweetly.

"I wouldn't expect anything less."

After she left Rhett's house, Scarlett headed south, where Wade's great-aunt Pitty and her husband Peter lived in a house near the zoo. They had moved to a little cottage on the same block as Pitty's niece Melanie after they had had to sell their high-rise apartment on Peachtree Street when Peter's 401k had been tanked in the recession. Pitty, Peter, and Melanie all doted on Wade. Pitty had practically raised him during Scarlett's first stint in Atlanta when he was just a baby. And, thank God, the baby-crazy women were equally as accommodating of Ella, though she was no blood relation to either of them. Wade and his cousin Beau moved freely between the Hamilton and Wilkes homes, though Ella was most often at Melanie's. Scarlett knew Mel wanted a little girl, but she hadn't been able to conceive again since Beau's birth. Scarlett would have been happy to trade problems; as it was, she felt no pang of motherly conscience when dropping her baby off with Melanie Wilkes every weekday morning.

After she collected the children - Ella from Mel's arms, Wade from Pitty's backyard - Scarlett went north again to her own modest bungalow in Edgewood. The place didn't look like much from the outside, but she and Frank had at least fully renovated and updated the inside. It was big enough for both kids to have their own rooms, and had been cheap enough to buy with only Frank's money to get started. Maybe after a few more successful flips, she'd feel secure enough to sell it and find something better. The more she saved, the less she wanted to spend it, but it would be nice to have a home she felt like she could entertain in again.

Juggling Ella in one arm and her purse and keys with the other, Scarlett opened the side door into the mudroom and held it open with her foot for Wade to trot inside.

"Shoes off, kid," she reminded him - every day. Every single time. Dutifully, Wade stopped and pulled off his muddy sneakers, then tossed him into his cubby by the door. Scarlett went on into the kitchen and set Ella's car seat on the table.

"Can I go to my room?" Wade asked quietly.

"Yeah, go on," she said, reaching out to ruffle his fine brown hair as he ducked passed her. To her surprise, instead of dodging her, Wade paused for a moment then turned and wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed timidly. After that inexplicable and unusual display of affection, Wade shied away as quietly as a ghost, and the house was quiet until she heard his bedroom door clicking shut.

"Gah," stated Ella.

"Sugar? Did I hear you com-"

"Yes, Frank, we're home," Scarlett said. She took a deep breath and tried to stifle the automatic annoyance that accompanied the sound of Frank's quavery voice. Frank shuffled into the kitchen, his pale hair tousled as if he'd been lying down, and headed right for Ella in her carseat. Cooing at the baby, he unbuckled her and lifted her to his shoulder. "Mel said she didn't eat much today. Would you try a bottle so I can get dinner ready? If she won't take it, I'll try to feed her once Wade is eating, but I don't have time right now."

"Sure, honey," Frank said, his tone quickly sliding into syrupy baby talk. "We'll get you a bottle, yes we will baby girl."

Scarlett rolled her eyes at Frank's back. They crossed the floor, passing each other on the way to the pantry and the fridge. Scarlett grabbed a box of spaghetti, then went back to the fridge and caught the door as Frank stepped over to the counter. They danced around the kitchen as Scarlett set out her dinner prep on the island and Frank bounced the baby while he refilled the bottle warmer and loaded it with a bottle of her breastmilk.

Frank took a step toward the living room sofa, then as if an afterthought turned toward Scarlett and kissed her cheek with his dry lips. They didn't speak as he carried Ella into the living area and settled on the sofa to feed her. While Scarlett continued to cook, she could hear the low murmur of his voice as he talked to the baby. A wave of fatigue shook her, and she dropped the knife on the granite counter with a clatter that hurt her ears.

"Everything okay?" Frank called without raising his head from their daughter.

"Fine," Scarlett said, unsure if she spoke loud enough to be heard. "Everything's just fine."

* * *

 _Dear Guest who wanted longer chapters - the first three were the shortest, they're a bit longer from here on out._


	5. Chapter 5

_Reminder that this is rated T for reasons including foul language._

* * *

After all the trash had been cleared out of the house, Rhett's folly didn't seem quite so idiotic. The location was hard to beat, and for an older house - especially old by Atlanta's standard of constant rejuvenation - it was sturdy and well-maintained. It turned out most of the damage was cosmetic: neglect, lack of updates, the trash and graffiti from the squatters.

With Frank busy finishing the work at their own new flip, and Rhett's money backing her, Scarlett could hire contractors for the heavy lifting - still a long list of projects. New front walk, new shingles, new paint for the exterior trim. Tearing out the old kitchen, adding new windows and French doors to the deck. Tearing out all of the bathrooms, upstairs and down. Demolishing one of the walls between bedrooms to create the master suite. At least one more new window. Probably there would be a need to update the plumbing and wiring to some extent.

And Scarlett herself would be exactly where she wanted to be: in charge and in control.

Once Rhett had agreed to her ideas.

They met at the Saltwood, a restaurant and bar in the Loews Hotel where Rhett was staying. By the time she arrived, after battling the always excessive Atlanta traffic, Rhett had ordered a cheese platter and drinks for them both - something neat in a double old fashioned glass for himself, whiskey or bourbon again; a slightly sweating glass of white wine for her.

"I hope you don't mind," he said, indicating the glass. Scarlett shook her head and then took a sip. Crisp and chill, Rhett had chosen well as always.

"So, are you ready to impress me?" Rhett asked, grinning at her like a mischievous little boy. Not her little boy; Wade was far too serious and solemn for mischief. Scarlett sighed mentally, and plopped her notepad on the table.

"Has anyone ever impressed you?" she queried, arching one eyebrow at him as she flipped the pages. Rhett shrugged languidly and took a sip of his drink.

With its solid structure, most of the house required just a cosmetic update - new paint, refinished floors. She had more detailed plans for the kitchen, the bathrooms, the new master suite. But beyond the remodel, Rhett had been clear that the entire home needed to be furnished. Scarlett's throat had gone a little dry as she thought of the money he must have at his disposal, to furnish an entire house all at once. Must be nice.

Respecting Rhett's sober tastes even though she found them utterly boring, Scarlett had chosen to paint the interior in shades of grey with white trim. The existing wood floors would be refinished and stained dark. White cabinetry in the kitchen wrapped with dark marble. Marble bathrooms - Scarlett couldn't quite contain a small sigh as she flipped to the two pages sketching out the his-and-hers walk-in closets and the master bathroom with its standalone oval tub. It was hard not to envy him such a luxurious retreat, though in her experience luxury had no bearing on whether or not your children came pounding at the door just when you settled into the bubble bath with your glass of wine.

Scarlett had always pictured Rhett at home in a modern environment, gleaming metal and glass and stark lines. But his taste ran decidedly more traditional than that. Practically Victorian, and she had been hard-pressed to rein in her own tendency toward gilt and floral and excess. Overstuffed, tufted sofas, chairs and tables with gracefully curving limbs.

"I'm relieved to find my confidence was not misplaced." Rhett raised his glass as she closed the notepad again. She slipped it into her large tote and lifted her own wine glass to clink against his.

"I thought you would be a lot harder to please," Scarlett confessed after she had taken the last sip of wine. With a glance, Rhett signaled the waiter and her empty glass was quickly replaced.

Rhett shrugged. "I'm not used to making a home. I've been living in hotels and executive apartments for years. I don't require much."

"Why are you buying a house now, then? Are you finally settling down?" she questioned, taking a sip of wine to cover the bitter taste on her tongue that belied her teasing tone.

Rhett wiggled his eyebrows at her and she had to laugh. "Why, Scarlett? Are you jealous?"

"No!" she protested through her mirth. "I'm just curious, Rhett."

"Perhaps I'm getting old."

"Not a chance."

"You flatter me. When did you move back into Atlanta?"

"Oh." Scarlett felt a bit blindsided by the sudden change in the conversation, but she was always more amenable to conversation which centered around herself, and the wine had loosened her tongue. "Well, Frank lived here."

"How is your husband?" Rhett asked silkily.

"Fine," Scarlett answered, not feeling loose enough to have this particular discussion. Perhaps sensing the brick wall she was ready to throw up, Rhett changed direction.

"What did you do after you left before? I always wondered."

"You had my email, Rhett."

"Touché. But you must admit, we didn't part on the friendliest terms." He rubbed his cheek ruefully.

That night was a little hazy with too much wine. She remembered slapping him, if not exactly why - beyond the obvious guess, that he had taken being an asshole a step or twelve too far. With the memory unclear and a spirit of generosity, Scarlett dimpled at him. "I forgive you."

"Ah! My broken heart is made whole again, my spirit returned to joy, my poor soul lifted on wings of-"

"Oh, stop it!" Scarlett protested, laughing. "You do run on."

"So tell me."

Scarlett shrugged and twirled her wine glass between her slender fingers. "I went home. My family still has an old farmhouse near Jonesboro that was built by my great-great-great-great-grandfather," she said, tapping each "great" out with a fingertip against the rim of her wineglass. "Tara, we call it. He named it…anyway. Both of my sisters were away at college then, and my dad…" Scarlett trailed off, now tracing the circle of her glass with her fingertip. Dad was a tough topic. He was able to still live at home because some of the money she made flipping houses went to paying for a home care nurse.

Her breath caught for a moment when Rhett's warm fingers closed around her wrist. Gently, he lifted her fidgeting hand away from the glass and held it in his own. He didn't ask, but soon enough the whole story was spilling from her lips anyway.

She had left Atlanta three years ago with her four-year-old son, unable to pay her own rent if she couldn't sell any houses. They had left just in time. Her mother had passed a few years before that - reflexively, she clutched Rhett's fingers tighter as she mentioned Ellen's death. Her dad had been hit hard by the loss of his wife, though no one had realized at the time just how far it had gone. Months before she had moved home, he'd gotten himself fired and was lucky not to be handed a lawsuit after bungling a huge transaction. His savings had been decimated by the recession, his income dried up, and with two daughters in expensive colleges, Gerald had taken out a cash-out mortgage on the home that had never been subject to a mortgage in its entire existence.

If Scarlett hadn't gone home when she did, they might have lost Tara, too. It was Scarlett who found the stacks of unpaid bills in the office, who took Gerald to the doctor after he told her to ask her mother when she tried to question him. Alzheimer's. The doctor said the timing was a coincidence, but privately Scarlett believed otherwise, with a surge of long-dormant Catholic superstition. Not that it mattered: the only thing that mattered then was money, and how much they needed, and how they would get it.

That was how she came to marry Frank, but she hadn't had nearly enough wine to tell Rhett those sordid details. He wasn't easily misled.

"So your knight in shining armor was Frank Kennedy?"

"Maybe he was," she answered, her chin jutting stubbornly.

Rhett snorted and tossed back the last of his second drink. She took a sip from her glass of wine, then held it away from her face and looked at it. Surely she should have finished it long ago - had he managed to signal the waiter for another without her noticing? Oh well. She didn't care, because - wine.

"C'mon, Scarlett, tell the truth. How'd you come to marry Frank? I thought he was engaged to your sister."

So Rhett did know something. "Hah! No, he never had the guts to ask her. He'd given her a promise ring before she left for school, that's all."

"Vows are but breath," Rhett said.

"Is that a quote?"

"Shakespeare."

"Whatever," Scarlett said, not really interested. "I needed the money, Rhett. We needed it - my dad, Wade, both my sisters. Frank's promise couldn't have meant much. And Sue would have taken that money and set herself up in some fancy apartment. She would have drained Frank and left the rest of us out to dry. You don't know my sister, Rhett. She's selfish and spoiled."

To which, Rhett threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Hush!" Scarlett cried, swatting at him with her free hand. "Rhett, everyone is looking at us. Shut up!"

"I'm sorry," he wheezed, sounding not at all apologetic. "But did I just hear you call someone else selfish and spoiled?"

"Fuck you," Scarlett said quietly, drawing both her hands down into her lap. That shut him up, but she didn't care. She reached for her purse and started to stand.

"I'm sorry," Rhett said again, sounding serious - maybe even sincere. "Scarlett, don't go."

"You're an asshole. I should slap you again."

Rhett turned his cheek to her. "Go ahead."

Her lips quirking, Scarlett sighed and sat down. "No, you'd probably like it."

He winked, and she smiled as she took another sip of her bottomless glass of wine.

"How's Wade?" he asked, another whiplash-inducing change of subject. "I always liked that kid."

With the conversation back on friendly territory, Scarlett lost track of time. It was so easy to talk to Rhett. He never looked down on her for her choices, even if he did tease her for her lapses in scruples. He was a masterful listener, quiet when he should be, asking the right questions at the right times. And the stories he had to tell of his travels overseas gave her an escapist thrill, a brief window into a life not weighted down by the concerns of money and children.

Her phone rang. FRANK, flashed the caller ID. "It's Frank," she said to Rhett. He nodded and leaned back against the booth, amenably shutting up.

"Hey, Frank," she answered the phone.

"Scarlett, were you planning on coming home tonight?"

"Uh, of course."

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" 

She didn't, but she didn't appreciate being talked to like a teenager breaking curfew.

"Are Ella and Wade alright?" she questioned in lieu of a response.

"They're fine. It's almost midnight."

Oh, shit. No wonder Frank was angry, she should have been home at least three hours ago. Still, that didn't mean he could talk to her like that.

"Then go to bed."

"Scarlett," Frank said. It sounded like his jaw was clenched, but the tone still came out wheedling instead of assertive.

"I'll be home soon," she snapped. "We just lost track of time."

"We? You're still with Butler?"

"Yeah, I am. Why don't you just go to bed?"

"I'll see you when you get home."

"Sure," Scarlett answered, then waited for him to say something more. The line was quiet so long that she lifted the phone away from her head and saw her home screen instead of an active call. "That asshole hung up on me!" she exclaimed aloud.

"Trouble at the castle?"

"Don't you start again. I didn't know it had gotten so late. I really do need to get home."

"Will you be at the house tomorrow?"

"Probably not for a couple days. I'll start getting the contractors lined up."

"Here," Rhett said, pressing a key into her palm. "You'll need to be able to come and go as necessary."

Scarlett curled her fingers to hold it. Her skin tingled against the cool metal.

"Yeah. Thank you, Rhett."

Rhett didn't walk her out to the car. Turning just before she left, she saw him signal the waiter for another drink. Good for some people, who only had to take an elevator upstairs. He relaxed back into the dark booth, swirling the glass in one hand. Her feet felt frozen and heavy, and she had to force each step out of the door and down the street to her car.


	6. Chapter 6

"Wade wanted you to say goodnight when you got home. I told him I would let you know."

"Sure. Of course, I'll check on him."

"He thought you would be home when he went to bed. I thought so, too."

"Yeah, I know, Frank. I just lost track of time. It's going to be a big project."

Scarlett ducked into Wade's darkened bedroom and padded softly to his bed. Wade slept on his back with his arms flung wide, his mouth slightly open and his dark curls tousled on the pillow. He looks like Charlie, she thought, though in truth she only vaguely remembered what Charles Hamilton had looked like. She brushed his soft hair with her fingertips, smoothing a lock back from his forehead. He turned his head, but didn't wake. Scarlett bent and kissed his cool forehead, pulled his sheets up over his chest, and stepped quietly back out of the room.

In their bedroom, Frank started in again.

"Just how many glasses of wine did you have?"

Scarlett balled up the pantyhose she'd just taken off and tossed them into the hamper. Three pointer, she mused, wishing she could have bounced them off Frank's head instead.

"I just had some wine with dinner. I pumped before I left. It won't be a problem."

Frank blinked. Yeah, she hadn't really thought he was talking about her breastmilk. But god, she did not want to have this conversation. At another time she might have relished the prospect of a good fight with Frank. He irritated her, he was worse than useless most of the time, he was fussy like an old lady. She barely needed an excuse to vent her spleen at him. But now it was after midnight, and the wine had made her tired. Ella would be awake again in a few hours. As invigorating as a fight with Frank could be, just right now she would rather have the sleep.

Frank's aggression was easily countered. Now flustered, his voice took on its more familiar wheedling aspect. "But, sugar, what about the drive? Are you sure it was safe?"

"I can take care of myself, Frank," Scarlett replied curtly. Grabbing her nightgown from her bedside drawer, she escaped into the bathroom to change. She was just about to pull her dress over her head when Frank barged right in after her. Scarlett stiffened, and her green eyes were glacial as they met his in the mirror. "Excuse me," she said with deceptive softness.

"Honey, I-"

"Whatever you still have to say can wait a few minutes, can't it?"

Frank mumbled an apology and backed, red-faced, out of the bathroom. Scarlett turned and locked the door behind him.

She needed this time to herself, before she had to go back out there and climb into bed with her husband. Frank hadn't made any advances - hadn't even hinted at intimacy since shortly after they'd found out she was pregnant, but that excuse wouldn't last much longer. Husbands and wives had sex, and there was no reason for Frank to expect differently. Even if the thought made her stomach clench - not pleasantly, but with an acid sting and bile rising in her throat. She would have to figure something out, and soon.

She could stash a bottle behind the towels again. That brandy had gotten her through the months after her affection for Frank had begun to wane, until she'd had to stop because of the baby. When things between her and Frank would reach a tipping point after days or even weeks of claiming headache and fatigue, and it was either go through with it or give up her fragile security, those clandestine sips of brandy before bed had approximated that glow well enough to go on.

She could leave Frank. The thought brought a brief burn of hope to her chest before it darkened to bitter ash. There were too many demands, and not yet enough money. If only she could have put off having a baby a little bit longer, but that ship had long since sailed. Carreen was still in school. Sue had graduated, at least, but she wasn't doing much with her degree yet and had moved back to Tara herself just a few months ago. There was her father to take care of. There was Wade. Divorce would be costly, and though she had long since given up her childhood religion, she felt a lingering Catholic shame at the thought, a shame that, unexamined, was still strong enough to hold her back.

Neither path appealed to Scarlett. Divine intervention would do for a start - if only someone else could step in and settle matters for her. That wasn't likely, but anyway, she didn't need to figure anything out tonight.

Still, Scarlett did not hurry to get ready for bed. Releasing her death-grip on the nightgown, she dropped it on the counter and pulled her dress over her head. Eyeing herself in the mirror, Scarlett turned side to side and examined her body. She pressed her palms against her abdomen, sliding them up and down while her mouth turned down in disgust. With the blessings of her natural metabolism and the workout regimen she had returned to as soon as possible, she had quickly lost most of the baby weight, but that wasn't at all the same as "getting her body back." The curves of her hips were more exaggerated, and there was still something like a paunch hanging on her belly.

She would not have another baby. There wouldn't be any more accidents. It would be helpful if Frank would agree to a vasectomy, but she knew that would never happen. She could talk to her doctor about something other than the pill this time, for sure. She didn't want to risk fucking that up again.

Twisting her arms behind her back, Scarlett unhooked her bra and dropped it on her dress, then pulled the nightgown over her head. The cotton was soft, worn in over many years, its spring green no longer bright but what it had lost in appearance it more than made up for in comfort.

She washed her face, brushed her teeth, brushed out her hair, drawing out each step of her nighttime routine as long as she could until there was no more reason to delay going back out into the bedroom. Where, to her dismay, Frank was still awake.

He had climbed into their bed and sat with the covers tucked loosely around his hips, turning the pages of a magazine with his readers perched low on his always slightly red nose. No luck tonight, then.

Scarlett padded to her side of the bed and climbed up. The overhead light was off and the only light came from Frank's nightstand. She started to lie down, internally debating whether or not she could ask him to shut it off, when Frank spoke first. He set the magazine down, took his glasses off and set them on top of it before turning to look at her.

"Scarlett, are you sure you have enough time for all this work?"

Ugh. "Do you have some kind of problem with me working on this house for Rhett, Frank?"

"Now, sugar," he prevaricated.

"Oh, stuff it," she said, flopping dramatically on her back. "Just come out and say what the matter is, please. I want to go to bed."

As she had half-hoped, Frank lacked the nerve to counter a direct challenge. He resorted to placating her with feeble excuses about her best interests, and she patted his hand and told him how kind he was to worry about her. The fool appeared to draw heart from her saccharine and false sentiment and beamed at her before kissing her cheek. Then he turned off the light and Scarlett lay in the dark for a long time, feeling the bed tremble beneath her as Frank shifted about and listening to his snores filling the room.

For the next couple weeks, Scarlett or Frank would bring the kids to Pitty's house and to school, and then they would meet at their own flip to go over progress, plans, and designs. In the afternoon she would leave him to the labor and drive up to Rhett's house, usually running at least one errand on the way. Tile, wood, counters, cabinets. It would have made more sense for her to start at Rhett's, to be there to make sure the contractors arrived on time and tackled the right work, but she trusted the foreman. And besides, if she spent mornings there, she wouldn't be able to see Rhett in the evenings.

She became more and more wrapped up in the renovation at Rhett's house. Rhett never second-guessed her and whined about her decisions. If he disagreed, he said so plainly. This often had the effect of rousing the volatile temper that she tried to keep under control when dealing with Frank. Somehow with Rhett, she didn't care to curb herself. Unlike Frank, who pitifully wilted like a limp daisy if she didn't treat him with kid gloves, Rhett would only laugh at her until she threw her hands up and gave over on whatever problem - fine, he could pick that tile and that wall color and that too feminine light fixture for the bathroom. It was his house, after all.

Frank, on the other hand, was getting more and more irritating every week, needling at her for her late nights at the renovation project, and she kept dodging his criticisms and ignoring the snide comments. But she couldn't avoid him completely; for one thing, they needed to pick another flip. After two offers on the last house, it had sold above asking price, and in another week they would be ready for an open house on the new project. If she hadn't been so distracted with Rhett's renovation, they would have found something already. Nearing the end of one flip without having another one lined up made her nervous. Scarlett needed to be able to see the bank deposits lined up, one behind the other, always another profit on the horizon.

So one Sunday, she and Frank took a list of addresses and the children - his idea, not hers - and went shopping. It finally occurred to Scarlett at the third or fourth house that Frank had wanted the kids along as a bulwark against her. At least that went both ways; with Wade never more than two steps away and Ella always in someone's arms, the unresolved arguments over how she was spending her time were off-limits. Her own temper was constrained to rolling her eyes behind Frank's back, but perhaps that was worth the trade-off.

Frank further insisted they take the kids out to eat at the end of the day.

"Come on, sugar," he wheedled, spiking her temper. "We haven't gone out as a family since Ella was born."

"You're not the one who has to whip her-" Scarlett felt Wade pressed against her hip. "Uhm." She leaned closer to Frank and hissed, "Ella needs to be fed and I'd much rather do that at home than in some restaurant crawling with other people's brats!"

Frank looked gratifyingly abashed, but undeterred. "Scarlett, honey, just the one time? Wade would love to go out to eat, wouldn't you Wade?"

That was a low trick, Scarlett fumed as Wade peered up into both adults' faces. "Hot dog hats, Mom?" he asked, and Scarlett knew she had lost this round.

"Sure," she said, forcing a smile for Wade. "We'll go get hot dogs." And Scarlett did have to admit, even Ella's little monkey face looked adorable with one of the Varsity's paper hats covering most of her head.

* * *

 _OK everyone I promise Scarlett was fine last chapter. She had about three glasses over several hours (one - waiting for her; two - Rhett signaled the waiter; three - didn't notice the last refill, and bottomless is a reference to that - not that it kept getting refilled forever). I'm amused that so many people called that out here when the first group of readers didn't have a single comment on that!_


	7. Chapter 7

By Friday, Scarlett and Frank still hadn't chosen a new project. Scarlett spent most of the day at the flip getting the finishing touches ready for their open house, and worrying the whole time about what was going on at Rhett's house. She had worked with all those contractors for years, but it still made her nervous not to be there to oversee their progress. Why, even having Frank there would have brought some relief, but he had refused her flat-out when she asked him to check in on the house. Trying to push the issue gave her a queer feeling, something like embarrassment, so she had dropped the subject and instead was on the phone every hour giving reminders and asking for updates.

Scarlett didn't feel ready to lock up until after 5, but she just couldn't go home without checking on the other house. She looped her purse over one arm, locked up the house, and called Rhett as she was getting in her car.

"Hey Rhett."

"Scarlett," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

"I just finished at the flip and I'm driving over to see how things went today. Did you want to walk through together?"

"Yes. I'll finish up a few things at the office and meet you there around 7?"

"Sure, that'll be perfect."

Scarlett had let herself in and poked around the first floor before Rhett arrived bearing gifts. A large pizza box in one hand and a brown leather picnic tote, just the size for a wine bottle and glasses, in the other.

"I haven't eaten yet. I thought you might be hungry, too." Scarlett's mouth watered at the smell of the pizza. She hadn't told Frank she'd be home late. Well he hadn't helped her out any today, so who cared.

"Let's make this a quick tour then," she said.

They walked through the whole house, reviewing the plans against the progress, and Scarlett summarized the remaining steps. Most of the construction was done now. Mel's husband and Scarlett's former - something, Ashley, had a flooring business and would be coming by to sand the old floors. The kitchen cabinets would arrive in the next week, the bath fixtures...The cavernously empty house would begin to be put back together now. And no one had destroyed anything while she wasn't there to supervise.

They took the pizza and picnic tote into the empty living room, where Scarlett pushed aside the dropcloth. Since the clean-up, the floor underneath was cleaner than the material that had been trampled on by workers all day long. She texted Frank while Rhett poured two glasses of wine - Having dinner. Home later - and got no response. Whatever.

"So Ashley Wilkes is in the lumber business now?" Rhett asked after polishing off a slice of pizza. "Didn't he work for a bank?"

"He did, but -" Scarlett fluttered her hand, summing up the past several years.

"That's an odd career change, don't you think? Not exactly two growing industries."

"Peter - Mel's uncle - hired him to take over."

"Ah," Rhett said, his eyes twinkling. "Family favor."

"I guess so."

"I always thought you were in love with him, despite your apparent friendship with his wife."

Scarlett choked on the dregs of her wine. "Yes. No."

Rhett refilled her glass."Yes and no?"

"I loved him when I was a kid, you know? He lived just down the road in this huge McMansion. Everyone hung out there all summer long because they had a pool. Ash just seemed better than everyone else. He played sports but he wasn't a dumb jock, he liked to read and he got good grades but he was never a nerd." Scarlett took a drink, set her wine glass down, and lay on her back. "He got me into a shit ton of trouble though, and he wasn't worth a damn when I wanted to get out of trouble. Fuck him."

"How so?" Rhett questioned with a smooth voice that gave away nothing of his own thoughts.

"There was Wade, first of all." Silence from Rhett. She went on, "I slept with Wade's dad because I was trying to make Ashley jealous. It was the end of summer just before I started at Tech. Ash was having a big pool party because his parents were out of town, Europe or something. We went up to his room and he showed me the ring he'd bought for Mel. He planned to ask her to marry him over Christmas break, and he already had the damn ring. I got pissed, I got drunk, and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to make out with someone else where Ash could see. It was even better that I could pick Charlie, and maybe hurt Melanie at the same time," she said ruefully. "Only Ash didn't seem to give two shits about that, so I just...kept going. It made sense at the time." Scarlett laughed bitterly. "We screwed on his bed, even. It was terrible."

Scarlett sat up abruptly and crossed her arms over her knees, curling her toes against the bare floor. She took a sip of wine. "And then, Wade. That's one." By the time she had realized she was pregnant, Charles was already dead, the sole fatality of an outbreak of bacterial meningitis at Emory University.

"Scarlett…" Rhett said quietly. She turned her head and rested her cheek on her arms, the wine glass hanging loosely from her fingertips.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this. When you're not being an asshole, you're very easy to talk to." Rhett didn't smile. "I haven't told anyone else about all of it," she said, slipping an arm out from under her head and waving her hand in the air. "It's not like I can tell Mel. 'Hey, friend, so I fucked your brother on your boyfriend's bed because I wanted to make him jealous and stop him from marrying you.' She's the nicest person I know, but I doubt even Mel is that fucking nice. Ugh!" Scarlett turned her head again, pressing her forehead into her arms. "So just, let me get it out, okay?"

Since Rhett was quiet, she went on. "In a way, Frank is two. By the time Wade was born, I had decided I would be done with love. I'd found the love of my life, but he didn't want me, so what did it matter who I married? I was stupid, but it made the decision to marry Frank a little easier. And I went to Ashley first, you know. He was just as broke as we were. At least we did manage to keep Tara; they weren't as lucky. I shouldn't blame him for being in the same hole I was in, but once it was over, and I was married to Frank...I guess I woke up a little bit. I realized I hadn't cared for Ashley for ages, and I didn't really care for Frank either, and it was too late for any of that to matter."

She knew she had never loved Frank as much as she should have, but she had loved him. At least, she was fond of him. And she had been truly grateful to him for everything he had done not just for herself and Wade, but the financial help he had given her entire family - first with his own money, then by continuing to support them all with the profits from their flips. She had tried to be a good wife. But when she had finally realized that she could let her love for Ashley go - useless Ashley! - the loss had left a hole in her that Frank would never, could never fill. If she had known, would she still have gone through with it? Would she have been able to find another way to save her family? Unable to look at Rhett, Scarlett tilted her head back and drained the last of her wine.

"You are...a remarkable woman, Scarlett."

Setting her wine glass down, Scarlett pushed to her feet. "You do have to be an asshole."

Rhett reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Sit down. I'm not judging you, or insulting you. Sleeping with the wrong person for the wrong reasons is practically a universal experience."

Scarlett smirked down at him. "Oh, yeah? Wanna tell me about yours?"

"If you sit back down, maybe I will."

"No," she retorted, tugging her wrist free and crossing her arms over her chest. Her skin felt cool despite the warm air, and she shivered.

"I got a girl pregnant when I was 18," Rhett said abruptly. The blunt admission took the breath from her in a swift exhale, and she sat back down on the floor with a soft thud.

"Oh."

Rhett reached out and touched a lock of her hair that had slipped over her shoulder. Scarlett scooted closer to him and he wrapped the shiny black strands around his fingers.

"There's not much more to it. She got pregnant, I took her to get an abortion, and our parents found out. It was just the last straw for my father. I left home a few weeks later, cut off." Rhett lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug. "You're not the only stupid person in the world, my dear, though I shan't admit as much ever again. It punctures the illusion of my vanity."

"You are mighty conceited," Scarlett breathed, watching him. His dark eyes were mesmerising in the low light, black pools that burned with some intense feeling. Her hair slipped through his fingers.

"You never fail to bring me down a peg."

"Somebody has to." Someone had moved again, though Scarlett wasn't sure if it had been her or Rhett. Her knee was pressing into Rhett's hip now, and she could feel the heat of his body through two pairs of pants.

Rhett chuckled, drawing his fingers down through her long hair and letting it fall back against her breast. "And you are an eager volunteer, hmm?"

"A tribute," she giggled, and when Rhett raised his eyebrows, "What? I saw the movie."

"It's good to know you haven't taken up reading. You frightened me for a moment."

"Jerk."

"No," Rhett said, and suddenly his lips were on hers. He closed the remaining space between their bodies in a heartbeat, and she felt the breadth and warmth of him enclose her. With a muffled sound of acquiescence, Scarlett's hands came up and pushed through his hair, cupping the back of his head and holding him in place. His hair was thick and soft under her palms and between her fingers. Rhett slipped one large hand under her rear, lifted her off the floor and settled her so that she sat across his lap, her knees bent and her heels pressed against his thigh.

Scarlett's heart pounded so hard it hurt in her chest, like the throbbing of a tender bruise just under her breastbone. Rhett smelled of tobacco and wine and his lips tasted like the pizza they had been eating. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and slipped inside, and now she tasted the wine, too, and something...something that was simply Rhett, a masculine cocktail that made her toes curl and her belly coil with longing.

Fuck, she thought, which sounded a little bit like Frank, and she pushed both words - all words - from her mind and concentrated on the man before her, surrounding her, inundating her with sensations she hadn't felt in...no...ever. Never had she felt like this, this thrill of erotic madness that coiled through her and teased all her nerve endings awake, made her blood sing in her veins until she felt hot all over, incandescent, incendiary.

His hands spanned her narrow back, roaming recklessly up and down but never crossing to the front, not so much as a fingertip grazing the sides of her heavy breasts that ached for his caress. She released his head to wind her arms around his shoulders so she could pull herself against his chest, craving the solid pressure of his body if he wouldn't relieve her with his touch. Her tongue tangled with his, chased him into his own mouth, explored the contours of his full lips. She could feel his mustache above her upper lip, a whispery sensation, almost ticklish. She'd never kissed a man with a mustache before. She wanted to kiss it, too, but was afraid one or both of them might come to their senses if she stopped this kiss, this one, this only.

Rhett tightened his grip on her back, crushing her breasts against his chest and she moaned into his mouth. She squirmed on his lap, knowing only that she needed to be closer still and somehow her body knew how to accomplish that; and a good thing, too, for her mind couldn't possibly inform her actions now. But as she tried to slide her leg over, to straddle him, to relieve the tender longing that was pooling between her thighs, Rhett stopped her. His hand on her knee was almost tight enough to hurt. Provoked beyond reason, Scarlett broke the kiss and pulled her head back.

And just as she had feared, the spell collapsed. She opened her mouth to scold him, question him, encourage him - imbue all of that in the simple utterance of his name, when cool reason flooded back in, driving out intemperate lust.

"Rhett," she said anyway, bewilderedly, at the same time he said, "You'd better go home."

"Of course," she mumbled, looking down. At Rhett's lap. She slid off to one side, curled her knees beneath her, then stood. Silently, she gathered her things.

Rhett walked her to the door, where she paused and turned to him. "Rhett, I-"

"Forget it. Everyone does stupid things, remember? Goodnight, Scarlett."

A little stunned, Scarlett said goodnight and let him gently hand her out the door. She was halfway home before her brain woke up enough to get angry. Stupid things? Was that all that kiss was to him?

Oh, God help her. That kiss wasn't stupid at all to her. She'd never experienced anything quite like it before. And certainly, certainly not with Frank. Her husband.

"Oh, fuck me," she muttered, and stomped her foot hard on the gas pedal.

* * *

 _Sorry I've become just terrible at responding to reviews! I am having loooong, ongoing struggles with appropriate time management. I am reading all the reviews and greatly appreciate them!_


	8. Chapter 8

They had an offer on the newly completed flip Monday morning after the open house. "Let's celebrate," Frank said, reaching for Scarlett's hand.

She dug a couple of soup cans out of the grocery bags and turned to put them away. "We haven't done that since the first house. We don't even have another one lined up."

Frank sighed. "Do you need to flip another house right away? We've made good money on the last three. More than enough to live on for the rest of the year."

Enough. No, it wasn't enough. "What about that brick place on Lakewood?"

"Sugar, don't you think you've got enough going on?"

"Don't call me that." Scarlett slammed a jar of tomatoes down on the pantry shelf. "If we buy something now, I'll be done with Rhett's place by the time you're done with construction. The timing will work out just fine."

"I don't know about that Lakewood place," Frank objected.

"It's on the north edge of the neighborhood and there are comps just across McDonough selling for over twice as much. It's a great buy, Frank." Scarlett started to fold up the empty grocery bags. Across the boulevard and across the railroad tracks - the house was, literally, on the wrong side of the tracks, and on the northern edge of one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. But it was on the edge, and it was a great opportunity. Maybe...she crumpled the paper bag in both fists. "If we make as much money as I think, we'll take a break, okay? We'll...we won't start a new project until next year. We can go and spend Christmas with Dad."

Scarlett forced the words out, but her throat felt like it might close up by the time she was done and she couldn't have said another word. Panic flapped huge wings inside her chest at the thought of interrupting the flow of money in her direction. She wasn't sure she would be able to go through with it after all; but she could worry about that later. She hadn't exactly promised anything.

Frank beamed at her, his pallid cheeks turning pink with pleasure. The blush clashed with his hair, Scarlett thought, offering a weak smile in return. She shoved the paper bags into the trash. When she straightened, Frank reached out again to grasp her hand while Scarlett racked her brain for another task, another chore, a reason to move away - anything.

"Maybe Sue could watch the kids and we could go away for a weekend?"

Scarlett's stomach went cold. I'm not ready to think about this. Frank was squeezing her palm. Shit shit shit!

"Ella will still be so young," she mumbled, focusing her gaze just below Frank's shoulder.

"Su - I mean, honey, it'll just be a weekend. We'll both miss Ella, but it'll be good for you to get some time away. Don't you think? Good for us?"

Frank tugged her hand gently as he talked, and Scarlett with stumbling steps let him draw her near.

"Come on, honey," he said, bending his head to nuzzle her ear. "Won't you at least think about it?"

Scarlett closed her eyes and willed herself to remain still, inside and out. She wanted to push away, violently, dig her nails into his face and shove him off her. Oh, this was ten - a hundred times worse than it had been before her pregnancy. No...even just after Ella's birth, she had felt at least more tolerant, if not any more affectionate, toward Frank than she did now. Hard self-honesty forced her to face that Rhett had only made it more difficult to live with the choices she had made.

She didn't, she couldn't love Rhett, but she had felt more with him in one kiss than she had ever felt with or for this man she had married to save her family from financial ruin. But just what was she supposed to do about that? Nothing else had changed - Gerald needed to be taken care of, Carreen was in school, she was half-supporting Sue and paying off that reverse mortgage on Tara, she had a son who was not Frank's responsibility to support.

If Frank's too-moist lips moved from her cheek to her lips, she feared she might vomit. He had released her hand and was now rubbing her shoulder and upper back with what she supposed was tenderness, but it made her skin crawl. She shrugged, a reflexive movement away from his hand that happened before she could stop it. Frank pulled back and she opened her eyes, meeting his burning gaze for a brief moment before his lashes lowered. He bent his head - oh, shit, he was going to kiss her and she was going to scream or throw up or something else completely wrong-

Then Ella cried, and for the first time since the little girl was born Scarlett blessed her daughter's existence. Frank's mouth was still aiming for hers when she stepped away, stumbling over her own feet and words.

"Ella's up, I'm sure she's hungry, I'll go get her, don't worry, I'll just-" she chattered until she was out of the kitchen and walking rapidly down the hall to the baby's room.

With Rhett's house essentially off-limits while Ashley and his crew were handling the floor, Scarlett intended to spend the week shopping, and Rhett had agreed to take part of the day Wednesday to go look at furniture. After, well, everything, Scarlett chose to omit that part of the plan when discussing it with Frank.

Rhett needed everything. He had no furniture of his own, not having lived in even an unfurnished apartment for over ten years. Together, they would tackle the big pieces - couches, chairs, dining set, bedroom set - and then Scarlett would complete the rooms with light fixtures and accessories.

"I looked at your last couple listings, Scarlett, and you're lucky I'm still letting you handle that much alone," Rhett had ribbed her. After they hung up she had lobbed the Otterbox-protected phone at the wall and wished it was his head. She had taste, no matter what Rhett said, but new houses had to be bland and boring or buyers wouldn't be able to see themselves there. If she and Frank got a new place, and she could stand to open her wallet long enough to decorate it as she would really like, Rhett would see.

Rhett was just as picky as she had feared when he had first approached her and she had thought he wanted her to help him find a house to purchase. They must have looked at every couch in the city, and sat on at least half of them, too. Scarlett feared that if she closed her eyes instead of black nothingness she would see swirls of variegated wood, all the dining chairs and tables and sideboards melding together. She was looking forward to the rest of the week when she could finish up without his meddling.

Store by store, they accumulated the furniture Rhett needed to set up housekeeping. Finally, there was nothing left to buy but the bedroom set. At nearly 9 o'clock at night, they were out of time and out of stores.

"Have you ever heard of the Internet, Rhett?" Scarlett groused as he browsed up and down rows of headboards. "Where you can do all your shopping without having to drag me to every store in Atlanta and still be too picky to buy anything."

"The Internet? Do tell, my dear. How does it work?" Scarlett scowled, knowing he was digging at her, trying to goad her into a technical explanation so he could laugh at her inaccuracies.

Rhett stopped by a massive bedstead, dark wood with two tall posters at the headboard but only short finials on the footboard. It was elegantly shaped and finely carved, displayed with a navy blue bedspread and a noticeable lack of frilly decorative pillows. This arrangement, coupled with the solid heft of both head- and footboard, kept it from taking on the feminine feeling that was usually found in beds of similar style. It was dark, classic, strong, and masculine. It was, simply, Rhett.

It was also about fucking time, but no one had asked her.

Rhett circled one of the posters with his fingers, then crossed behind the headboard, skimming his palm along the gentle curve. The semblance of an intimate caress had the mortifying effect of bringing a blush to her cheeks as her heartbeat seemed to triple in an irregular rhythm. On a piece of furniture, come on, Scarlett, she admonished inwardly. He rounded the corner of the bed and after pressing the mattress down with both hands, turned to sit. He bounced and Scarlett laughed softly, thinking he looked a little ridiculous for a man usually so dignified.

Rhett's head lifted at the sound and he pierced her with an indecipherable gaze. She stopped laughing and tossed her head.

"Have you finally found something you like, King Butler?" she scoffed.

"Perhaps."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "I mean it about shopping online, Rhett. You aren't dragging me around on another day like this. I'm tired."

"Lay down."

"What?"

Rhett patted the mattress beside him. "Let's test it out. I need a mattress too, don't I?"

Scarlett felt her face grow even warmer. She was sure she must be bright red by now. "That's your decision," she snapped.

Rhett hummed a non-response and swung his legs up on the mattress. Linking his fingers behind his head, he fell easily back against the pillows and sank into the down. Then he wriggled. Scarlett's mouth popped open as his hips moved side to side in an utterly lascivious manner. The man had no shame.

He lifted his head suddenly and turned on one side, resting one arm on the bed and patting it with his free hand. She snapped her jaw shut and arched her eyebrow, hoping her effort to project an air of disdain was successful even as she knew he would probably see through her.

"Come on. I need a second opinion."

The lady doth protest too much, she thought, and wrinkled her nose wondering where she had heard such a weird phrase. But it rang true, so she sat on the edge of the bed across from Rhett. After all, what legitimate reason could she have for avoiding something as simple as lying, fully clothed, on top of a made-up bed in a public place, even if the furniture store was almost empty at this hour. No reason at all. She was being ridiculous. Even worse, transparently so.

Defiantly, Scarlett swung her legs up and lay back. The down pillows were far too soft and they puffed up about her head like thick balloons.

"What do you think?" Rhett asked, his voice muffled through the feathers. She felt the bed tremble just a little as he bounced.

"Uhmmm."

The bed shook again and then his arm was heavy across her abdomen. Scarlett squawked in surprise and lifted her head out of the pillow. He had rolled over onto his stomach, one arm tucked under the pillow, and the other draped over her. Meeting her eyes, he grinned like a little boy.

"I sleep on my stomach."

"Oh," was all she could think of to say to that, before dropping her head back into the encompassing pillow.

With every breath she felt the weight of his arm as her abdomen rose up against it. No other part of their bodies touched but he was close enough that she gradually became aware of the heat of him just inches from her side. His warmth sank through her clothes and seeped under her skin. She wondered if she could see herself now if she would be flushed everywhere from the effect of Rhett.

They lay like that for a long time, fifteen minutes that felt like an hour to Scarlett; an hour of steadily increasing tension like screws attached to every nerve ending, turning slowly tighter and tighter. She kept her eyes open and stared at the ceiling the whole time, terrified that if she let them close reality would slip away and she would forget the store, forget Frank, and turn on her side and burrow against Rhett like a lonely animal seeking warmth, comfort, companionship. She held herself rigid, both arms pressed along her sides and her hands fisted, feeling that fierce physical control was the only thing holding her together.

The bed shifted again and suddenly Rhett's face was hovering above hers, only inches away, and her nerves snapped.

"It's a great bed," she said in a rush, then slid out from under him and got to her feet. "Are you ready to buy it?"

Rhett had turned on his side again, long legs stacked, one powerful arm propping up his torso and the other draped over his abdomen. The pose should have been girly, except that when Rhett did it he looked like a Roman god. He stared at her for a moment, his hooded gaze inscrutable. Then in one smooth move he rolled over, sat up, and rose to his feet.

"Yes," he said, not looking at her. "Let's ring it up."

Scarlett had known, once 6 pm had come and gone, that there would be some sort of hell to pay when she got home. If she hadn't expected the shopping to go so late, certainly Frank hadn't either. He didn't even know she had been with Rhett, but her late return would make him suspicious. The whole way home she clung to the hope that he had gone to bed early. So she let herself into the house quietly, slipping her shoes off on the outside stoop and foregoing her usual ritual of tossing her keys on the counter.

But Frank was awake, sitting on the couch with Ella tucked in one arm, and her behavior only served to ratchet up his suspicions. He didn't greet her right away, but stood with the baby in his arms and walked out of sight down the hall. She heard one door close, then another, and then Frank was back in the kitchen staring at her with drooping eyes that managed to look both forlorn, and, with unexpected fire, royally pissed off.

Scarlett told herself that was fine by her. They hadn't had a really good fight since before Ella came, maybe even before she'd known she was pregnant. She would love an invigorating battle. Still, prudence restrained her until Frank should make the first move.

"How was the shopping?"

"Fine," she said brightly. If Frank wanted to make sweet, she could pour on the sugar just as well. "I'm sorry it took so long. There's just such an awful lot to buy," she elaborated, moving around the kitchen for a glass and then pouring herself some wine from the box on the counter. Taking a sip she turned and leaned back against the cabinets. "In the end I think we got everything he wanted," she finished, and blanched. Shit.

"He - Rhett?" Frank asked, coming to the end of the bar counter opposite and resting his crossed arms on top.

"You know I was shopping for his house today," Scarlett replied crossly. If he hadn't noticed, she just had to act natural and he would drop the matter eventually.

"So Rhett got everything he wanted, did he?" Frank questioned, his eyes raking her head to toe and back again with a crude gaze. He leered at her. "Is that why you're home so late?"

Scarlett's head snapped back as if she'd been slapped. She set the wine glass down none-too-gently and liquid sloshed up and over the rim of the deep bowl. "How dare you!" she cried, taking several steps forward to cut the distance between them in half.

"I'm wondering about what you might have dared, Scarlett," Frank retorted. His accusation lacked bite. She could tell he was attacking her out of hurt, like a wounded animal, but once her temper was boiling nothing as timid as sympathy would divert her.

"I dared to work my ass off, on my feet all day, shopping for a client who is paying me money. Money for us, Frank." Frank was already wilting under her attack, uncrossing his arms and dropping them to his sides.

"Scarlett-"

"I've been working every day for this family, and you have the gall to stand there and - and what, exactly? Accuse me of sleeping with Rhett?"

"Now, honey-"

"Do you think I fucked him, Frank? Is that what's got you worried? Sitting here all night holding our baby, that little girl that I gave birth to. You have no idea what that's like, how that felt-" Scarlett took a deep breath, trying to rein herself in. "It's business, Frank," she snapped. "But maybe you don't understand that."

"Sugar-"

"God DAMNIT Frank, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? Have you ever even listened to a word I say? Oh, but I'm supposed to listen to you, aren't I? Is that what this is about? You'd rather have your sweet little wife waiting for you at home, warming your slippers by the fire and bringing you a beer when you get home? That's what you expect of me, isn't it, and you're just pissed as hell that I wanted to keep working after Ella was born. I wish to God she hadn't been born! If I could take them both back I w - I-"

Stricken, Scarlett stopped her tirade midbreath. Frank was pale, his watery eyes wide and horrified at her words, words she had never meant to say out loud to anyone, but especially not Frank. She knew how much he loved Ella and even when she felt she hated him, she would not have taken that away from him.

It wasn't because of Frank that she stopped. If it was only Frank, staring at her with stricken eyes, she would have kept going for hours, ranting until the words lost all meaning and regretting it bitterly in the morning. Behind Frank, where the hall opened into the living area, a shadow had emerged, a little thing with a long tail. The light from the kitchen just gilded brown curls. Wade, with one end of his blanket in his fist and the rest trailing on the floor behind him. How long had he been there? How much had he heard, and what, if anything had he understood?

Please, God, let him not understand, Scarlett prayed with a religious fervor she had never felt, even on her knees next to her pious mother. She hadn't really meant it. She might not have chosen to have either child, if she had thought about it at the time, but she would never give them back now that they were hers.

"Wade," she said in a choked voice, "what are you doing out of bed?"

"I heard yelling."

"No, darling. I just got home and - and we just got a little too loud, that's all. Come on," she said, moving briskly past Frank without looking at him, "do you want me to tuck you in?"

For a heart stopping moment, she thought Wade would recoil as she stretched out her hand. But he reached his free hand out and took hers, and padded softly along next to her down the hall to his bedroom. After he had climbed back into bed, he asked for a story in such a plaintive voice that Scarlett's guilty heart couldn't deny him.

After the story, Scarlett stayed with Wade, sitting next to his pillow with her head dropped back against the headboard, until he fell asleep. She couldn't have said if she did that for her son, or to avoid her husband, who was also blessedly asleep by the time she slipped into their bed.

* * *

 _A note on Chapter 7; Maliflo, your comment reminded me, the "tribute" reference is a slight liberty on my part. It's a reference to the Hunger Games but the movie didn't come out until 2012 and - though it hasn't been explicit - my behind-the-scenes timeline places this story in 2011._


	9. Chapter 9

Frank never reproached Scarlett for what she had said that night. He never so much as hinted at their little contre-temps. He even still agreed to go forward and purchase the house she wanted. Frank appeared to move on as if they had never had an argument at all, and Scarlett, who could not forget what she had said nor ignore that something had happened, was bewildered by her husband's actions. With no sign from Frank to open the door, she could not humble herself to offer an apology.

The unalleviated guilt continued to plague her. She cooked Frank's favorite meals and kissed him when she came home and, on an occasion that she felt excruciatingly awkward, she brought him a beer one night when he arrived home late. By neither word nor expression did Frank show any recognition of the action's relationship to her screaming tirade.

Rhett's house was almost done. The finishing touches - furniture and decoration, kitchenware, and the complete library of books he had ordered - were being delivered. Then Rhett would move his belongings from the hotel, such as they were, but her work would be finished.

And she would have no reason to see him again.

Of course that was fine. She was only stressed because of what had happened that night with Frank. There was no reason for her to approach the end of her working relationship with Rhett with a bleak feeling of despair gnawing at her gut. They had been something like friends, once, but that was years ago. Their relationship now was only business; business and a strange lapse or two into something that shouldn't have happened and wasn't anything that could continue once the renovation was no longer binding them. There was barely more between them than there had been three years before. She had forgotten him once and she could do so again. It wouldn't be difficult. At least Wade wasn't involved this time.

She had first met Rhett Butler at a networking event; a happy hour, though the symmetry between that first meeting and the unexpected reunion at Big Sky did not amuse her at all. That evening five years before she had been with Ashley. She was just building her career as a realtor; Ashley was reluctantly following in his father's footsteps in the lending industry, uncomfortable with many of the things he was being asked to do. At the time, she had only thought he was too soft-hearted. Wade was just a baby, Melanie and Ashley were both living with Mel's Aunt Pitty, and Scarlett was spending hours in the car every day, criss-crossing Atlanta to show houses. She had been driven then, too; if not quite as obsessively focused on earning as much money as she could as she had become later.

In those days it had taken no more than a glass of wine for her poorly concealed longing for Ashley to surface. A happy hour with him in attendance was miserable if productive, for the covetous impulse that drove her to flirt relentlessly in hopes of attracting his attention caught men like flies in honey. Unintentionally, she alienated the women and gained business from men who thought they would close their deals in her pants. Consistent disappointment discouraged them not at all; but then again, it hadn't discouraged her from pining after Ashley, either.

She rarely had to buy more than her first drink. There was always someone at her elbow, ready to pay for whatever she wanted, unaware that what she wanted above all could not be purchased nor did it have anything to do with him. She wanted Ashley, and only Ashley.

Rhett had been down at the end of the bar that night, a swarthy stranger who caught her eye with the intensity of his black gaze, a piercing stare that despite its nonchalance seemed to see through her - body and soul. He had laughed as if he understood the real meaning behind her desperate vivacity, and looked her up and down as if he could see through the lace and satin lining of her green sheath. She had ignored him. He had not gotten the message.

"If you want another drink you'll have to get it yourself," he had stated without introduction, stepping up to the bar next to her.

"Pardon me?"

"I think you've had enough, and I don't intend to waste my money on nothing," he had said smoothly, looking her up and down with that same unclothing glance. "I've been watching you."

He made her skin crawl.

"You are very rude, Mr…?"

"Butler. Call me Rhett."

"I don't intend to call you anything at all."

"Do you mind if I call you Scarlett?"

"How do you know my name?" she had questioned, struggling through the amicable influence of the wine to sound as cold as possible.

"My dear, every man in this bar knows your name, and is not at all shy about either praising your, ah, many charms, or lamenting his inability to get you into bed, or quite often both."

"How dare you!"

He had shrugged, and for the first time she had noticed just how broad his shoulders were beneath his expensively tailored jacket. The sense of his physical power had struck her like a blow and she had gripped the smooth wood of the bar for balance.

"Don't worry, Scarlett. I don't intend to follow in their foolish footsteps."

His meaning had been plain enough, even to her, and she had been disappointed and furious with herself for feeling so. Never had she failed to capture a man's interest - only Ashley had ever eluded her, and she knew that was because he had felt obligated to marry Melanie to please his father. She knew he still wanted her, Scarlett; and loved her, too. She would cling to that hope until she died.

"You presume -"

Rhett had waved a hand dismissively. "Does he know?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your blond-haired fellow. Does he know you do all this for his benefit?"

She should have slapped him then, instead of waiting years to put him in his place. But she hadn't; and even more strangely, by the end of that night she had given him her number. She hadn't remembered doing so, and still didn't know how he had redeemed himself. If he even had; perhaps it had only been the wine, the same reason she could never recall how it had happened.

Scarlett hadn't known until he called her three weeks later to invite her to dinner, but she remembered enough to know why she had accepted that invitation. Foolish vanity had sensed a victory at hand. He had only pretended to be immune to her that night! And he was too stubborn and proud to have given in any sooner, but after all, he was no different than any other man. She would have dinner with him simply for the pleasurable vindication of turning him down flat.

Only he had not offered her any opportunity to do so. And that had been her first experience with that perverse quality of Rhett Butler, his ability to upend expectations, good or bad. He had not mentioned the happy hour at all, but had been the soul of courtesy all evening. Pleasant and easy to talk to; entertaining with his succinctly cutting remarks and frank opinions. She had surprised herself by having a very good time - and hated herself for the disappointment she felt when he didn't even kiss her goodnight. She had wanted him to, and only partly because of her original plan to refuse him.

Another month had passed before Rhett had called again, and the pattern took shape. He would call - sometimes two or three weeks in a row, sometimes not for three months - and take her out to dinner. At dinner, he could be cutting - as he had been the night they had met - or kind - or teasingly flirtatious. But never did he go beyond verbal innuendo, not even so much as to kiss her on the cheek. It was maddening, but she never could turn him down.

More than six months had passed, six months of sporadic something-like-dates in which Scarlett had carefully managed not to mention her baby, when Pitty had cancelled on her at the last minute. Rhett had not answered his phone and she had met him at the door to her apartment in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, obviously unprepared to go out.

"I tried to call. I can't go out tonight after all."

"I can see that," he had said, looking her up and down. Despite the grubby clothes, that penetrating gaze had made her feel as exposed as when he did it to her in a skintight club dress. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes - it's just - my babysitter canceled."

"Ah," he had said.

"You knew."

Rhett had laughed. "My dear, of course I knew. Were you trying to hide it from me?"

"Don't be silly." Of course she had been - though she couldn't have said why, as Rhett had never shown any romantic interest in her at all, nothing to be derailed by her baby. "I didn't think you cared."

"May I meet him?" Unable to think of a reasonable excuse, Scarlett had acquiesced, and their strange relationship had entered a new stage. Rhett was still unpredictable, calling irregularly to schedule their not-quite-dates, but now he sometimes asked to make plans with her son, too. Though Pitty had been appalled, Scarlett had let him. She was relieved anytime anyone wanted to take the baby - now toddler - off her hands for any amount of time. He would come over hours before dinner and take Wade to the park in a suit and tie, somehow never looking worse for wear afterward. He took them both to more than one baseball game. Though she had managed, most of the time, to ignore Rhett physically, that first time she had seen him in a thin Braves t-shirt and faded ballcap had made her stomach turn flips. As always, he had seemed indifferent to her, so she had reminded herself of her love for Ashley and reburied the uncomfortable feelings Rhett had stirred within her.

Somehow, Rhett had become a friend, someone she looked forward to seeing during those two or three years, and someone she had missed when his absences went on too long. She wondered sometimes if there was anything more there; it seemed strange to her that a man clearly older than she would care to spend so much time with a single mother and a toddler. As she was unable to form any satisfactory conclusions, she didn't waste too much time on these thoughts. Rhett simply defied comprehension, but as his motives had never seemed insincere, the question of what they truly were had quickly ceased to bother her.

Scarlett remembered the day she had last seen Rhett, though the details of the later evening were difficult to tease out of the wine-soaked haze. The three of them had spent the day at the zoo. Scarlett had been reluctantly impressed by the apparent ease with which Rhett had carried Wade on his shoulders most of the day, and irritated that she had registered that feat of strength at all. After a long day, Wade had even gone to bed without a fuss; and that was Rhett's doing, Scarlett knew. He seemed to have an endless amount of patience where her son was concerned. She no longer puzzled over his behavior but was only grateful when he had taken over after bath time. She had been free to relax on the couch with a glass of wine, nearly dozing as she listened to Rhett reading bedtime stories until the low murmur of his Charleston drawl faded into the sound of Wade's snuffling snores.

Rhett had joined her on the couch. They had finished the expensive bottle of wine he had provided, then she had dug a bottle of "two buck chuck" out of the cupboard. After that things became difficult to piece together. The wine had made her antsy - and amorous - and careless that it was Rhett with her, unpredictable and sometimes brutal. Forgetting to be coy, Scarlett had asked him bluntly, "Why haven't you ever kissed me?"

And the perverse wretch had laughed at her, she remembered that. Yet that was not what had made her slap him. "Does wondering about my kisses keep you up at night, Scarlett?"

"Of course not. Forget it."

"Do you regret very much that I have not kissed you?"

"No. I said forget it, Rhett."

"What about all those men - boys, really - that you have twisted round your finger? Don't forget I've seen you in action, my dear. Aren't their kisses enough?"

She had crossed her arms over her chest and bit her tongue.

"Ah, perhaps not. You do need kissing, Scarlett. If they aren't up to the task…"

"You - why, you -"

"But I don't care to take the trouble, myself. I'm waiting to see if you forget about Ashley Wilkes."

"Ashley-?"

"Yes, Ashley. I know all about your little...peccadillo."

She had not understood that word, but the gist was clear. He knew, somehow, about Ashley. She hadn't even needed to ask him to clarify. For once, his face was open to her.

"How dare you! You don't know anything about me and Ashley."

"I think I know enough. Except one thing - does his wife know?"

With no other way she could see to extricate herself from that distasteful conversation, she had given in to her temper and slapped Rhett across the face as hard as she could manage. And, she remembered clearly now, he hadn't reacted at all. He hadn't flinched, had not even blinked. Had his head even moved? It had been the most unsatisfying outburst of temper that she had ever had. She had ordered him out of the house.

"Get out of my house, Rhett Butler."

"Goodnight, Scarlett. I'll call."

"Don't bother!"

"In a month or so, when you've calmed down." And, laughing, he had shown himself out the door.

But Rhett had not called that month. She had heard through acquaintances that he had left town on an extended business trip. The real estate business, already being strangled to death in the recession, had only gotten worse. If Rhett had ever come back, she had never heard - she had already returned to Tara and learned just how much worse things could be.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Strong** T rating for sexual content._

* * *

After the fight with Frank, Scarlett changed her schedule. She went to Rhett's house in the morning to greet delivery teams and direct the placement of furniture. Sometimes she stayed a couple hours into the early afternoon, to hang artwork and curtains and screw in lightbulbs, but she always left well before 4 o'clock so there would be no chance of encountering Rhett if he decided to drop by after work. Then she would drive to the new flip, the one she had promised would be the last before taking a break; a promise she had never intended to keep that now bound her as securely as iron shackles.

By Thursday afternoon, the only thing missing from Rhett's house was the custom-made sofa - delivery Friday. Scarlett wandered the house a little aimlessly, making sure everything was in place, needlessly adjusting the leveling on art and lampshades. She had trekked basement to bedrooms and had to admit there was nothing more keeping her there. She would come back for a few hours the next morning to wait for the sofa and be done, completely.

Traipsing back downstairs, Scarlett sat cross-legged on the floor in the empty spot where the couch would go and pulled her phone from her trouser pocket.

S-I just walked through. Everything's done except the couch. I'll be here to meet them in the morning.

R-That's great. Thank you.

S-Tomorrow I'll leave the key on the counter and lock the knob when I leave.

Scarlett tapped a nail against her phone. Rhett didn't respond.

S-Is that okay?

R-Are you leaving now?

S-I was going to.

R-Do you have to?

Her tapping finger stilled, hovering in the air over the touch screen. First letter, Y or N?

S-No

R-Give me 30 minutes

Scarlett backed out of the conversation and opened one with Frank.

S-I'm still waiting on some things here. I'll be a little late. Might have to meet you at home.

Frank took an uncomfortably long time to respond, leaving Scarlett to wonder if it was because he was busy working or questioning her actions. It wasn't totally a lie, she rationalized. She was waiting.

F-OK

That's all he has to say? Scarlett's eye roll was a completely automatic reaction and immediately accompanied by another flare-up of guilt. She shoved it down firmly. Time enough for that later, probably when she was lying awake at 2 AM again. I won't think about that now.

With thirty minutes to kill, Scarlett went to the bathroom, and paused in front of the ornate mirror in the downstairs half-bath. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail earlier, and now she tugged the elastic out and tossed her head. Her thick, curl-resistant hair worked in her favor, falling into a straight curtain that went just below her shoulders and showed no mark from being tied back. She patted the corners of her mouth and drew her fingertips up across the tip-tilted corners of her green eyes, reassuring her vanity that there were as yet no wrinkles marring her pale skin. Then she dug into her purse for a tube of lipgloss, and smacked her lips once after smoothing that on. Scarlett never could pass a mirror without stopping to check her appearance, and she told herself this was no different. It had nothing at all to do with Rhett.

Back in the living room she sat cross-legged on the floor again, feeling a strange reluctance to sit on Rhett's furniture. She went through the photos on her phone, finding a few recent pictures of the kids to send to Gerald. He didn't always know who they were - on bad days, he confused Scarlett for her late mother - but he had always had a soft spot for children and young people of all ages, so even when he didn't recognize his grandchildren their photos cheered him.

She lingered over a photo of Wade beaming as he held up a drawing of the tiger he'd seen at the zoo. He hadn't seemed any different since the night he had heard her yelling at Frank, but he was so timid and quiet to begin with she wasn't sure that was a good sign. Who knew what he had locked away in his small secretive heart? Melanie could draw him out. Scarlett was torn between relief that he had someone he would talk to, and dismay that he might share what she had said with his aunt. That would be humiliating. She had come to terms with Mel, they were even friends in a tentative sort of way, but not so close that Scarlett wanted the sordid details of her marriage and the terrible things she had said about her children shared with the other woman.

The sound of the door opening startled her and she hastily jammed her phone back into her pocket and rose to her feet. She was standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room when Rhett entered, that leather picnic tote in one hand again. He smiled when he saw her and she grinned back, a little self-conscious.

"Scarlett," he said, coming over and bending to kiss her cheek. "Thank you for waiting."

Her skin burned under the light caress and she struggled to swallow with a suddenly dry throat.

"No problem, uhmm. Did you want to walk through and check everything, or…" Unsure what to ask, Scarlett left the question hanging open.

"We can do that if you'd like," Rhett answered, casting a lazy gaze around the room. "I thought we could celebrate." He lifted the picnic tote to draw her attention.

That didn't sound like a great idea. "Oh - okay. Yes."

"After you." Rhett made an abbreviated little bow and motioned her ahead of him.

She led him upstairs first, pointing out little things like the smart light switches, ready to connect to a home network, the outlets with USB ports, as well as the items she had chosen - lamps, window hangings, artwork mixed in with some pieces Rhett had provided. She wasn't sure if he had bought them for the house or already owned them despite his less-than-settled life. Some things had the names of other countries written or carved into the bases and backs, but that didn't have to mean he had been there.

Suddenly Scarlett was struck by curiosity, the desire to know the story behind at least one of these items and how Rhett had acquired it. She stopped at the top of the stairs in front of a piece that stood out even to her untrained eye because it was different from the other items Rhett had chosen, most of which she would describe as looking just like the paintings she had seen in museums as a child. Traditional, she supposed they were - paintings that looked like something; not photographic, but recognizable. If this painting was supposed to look like something, she wasn't exactly sure what that was. Roughly the bottom third was blue - sky blue, but the rest of the painting shaded from gold to pink to violet, with blotches like dark purple clouds. There were a couple streaks of gold and pink in the blue section that made her think of sandbars.

"What's this one, Rhett?" she questioned abruptly. He stopped with one foot on the second step and turned to look at her. "Where did you get it?"

"It's from Charleston."

Scarlett looked away from the painting and over to Rhett. "But I thought you hated Charleston."

"No, not completely," he answered, stepping up and coming to stand next to her. Her shoulder brushed his bicep as they both looked at the large painting. "This particular piece happens to capture some of what I love best. The open sea at sunset, just as if I was standing on the deck of my boat."

"You have a boat?" Scarlett asked, turning a little to look up at him.

"I do. A little sailboat named Rosie."

"Why Rosie?"

"For my sister."

"Oh."

"She painted this," Rhett went on, raising a hand to indicate the painting.

"I didn't know…" Scarlett began before trailing off. Didn't know about the boat, or his sister, or well - anything, really, other than what he had told her about why he had left home. She had never asked. Her stomach turned over with something like guilt and regret, a futile feeling.

"Shall we?" Rhett asked quietly, motioning to the stairs. Eager to escape the queer moment she had stumbled into, Scarlett hurried down the stairs.

After walking through the main floor and the basement, they ended their tour in the kitchen at the back of the house. Rhett set the picnic tote on the counter and unzipped it to access a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"Everything looks wonderful, Scarlett," he said as he unwrapped the foil from the bottle. "Are you happy with it?"

"It's your house, Rhett," she deflected.

"Tell me what you think about it," he pressed as he untwisted the wire wrapped around the cork.

Her natural bluntness broke the barrier of nervous reticence that had been holding her in. "It's a little plain. Really, Rhett, if you had just let me-"

Her words were drowned out by Rhett's raucous laughter. "Oh. Scarlett," he rasped, "you would have had the whole place dripping with crystal chandeliers and covered in velvet, wouldn't you?"

She bristled. "Just one over the dining table! You picked such a - a-" she trailed off, unsure what epithet would describe the boring, old-fashioned chandelier Rhett had preferred.

Rhett grinned and pop the cork so quickly that the noise made her jump. "Thank you for subjugating your own flair to my particular tastes. I'm sorry I hired you for such a boring endeavor."

"It's not boring," Scarlett said quickly, feeling uncomfortably as if Rhett had read her mind. He handed her a champagne flute filled nearly to the brim with golden bubbles. "I thought it would feel old fashioned and tacky, but it's almost...almost soothing. It reminds me of home," she admitted. "I mean, my parents' home. Where I grew up."

"Your mother must have had excellent taste."

Scarlett nodded. She didn't want to talk about her mother. Even years later, such a deep hurt was still raw. She raised her glass to her lips, ready to take a drink, but Rhett reached out and stopped her with two fingertips laid lightly against her wrist.

"Wait," he commanded softly. "A toast." He withdrew his hand and raised his own glass. "To a successful partnership," he said, a peculiar choice of words that made her stomach tighten. "Thank you." He clinked his glass gently against hers.

Scarlett took a sip of the champagne. It was cool and crisp on her tongue, and the first few swallows were almost immediately accompanied by a slight lightheaded feeling that reminded her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast. Rhett was watching her as he sipped his own drink, with a bland expression that nevertheless unnerved her. She took her glass over to the windows above the counter, the ones she had had doubled from two to four. The sun was behind the house now, shining full strength into the backyard and coming through the bank of windows to pool on the polished marble counter. The light made the champagne sparkle and she spun the flute slowly in her right hand, watching it glitter, jewel-like. It was so pretty that she almost didn't want to drink it, but Rhett's continued silence unnerved her as much as his impenetrable black gaze and so she drained the rest of the flute at once.

She hadn't heard him move but suddenly he was right beside her, his warmth a tangible presence at her back. He refilled her glass and she did not object.

"Do you think I should do anything else with the yard?" he asked.

Scarlett shook her head. "No. It's perfect." The majority of the lawn was untouched, a long green sward that extended back from the rear of the house. Deep garden beds planted thick with flowers hugged the three fenced sides of the perimeter. Unlike the almost staid order inside the house, the intermixing of blooms gave the garden a wild appearance, riotously colorful. The deck was furnished for entertaining, but no other patio had been created.

"Hmm. Yes, it is."

Scarlett finished her champagne and firmly set the glass down on the counter to discourage Rhett from refilling it again. Rhett did the same a second later, the flute a fragile thing dwarfed by his large hand, his skin bronzed by the warm light of the afternoon sun. Her own fingers itched to touch him, to trace the veins and feel the silky scrape of black hair against her skin.

It was definitely time to leave.

"Thank you for the champagne," Scarlett said as she turned around, "I've got-" to get home, she finished silently as Rhett stole the words from her.

His mouth moved over hers, molding her lips to his. For a heartbeat, one painfully strong contraction in her chest, she stood passively in his embrace, battered by the better part of her conscience screaming for her to leave. Immediately if not fucking sooner. Rhett brought a hand to the back of her head, burying his fingers in her loose hair as his tongue tasted the corner of her mouth, and desire overrode all higher thinking. She parted her lips to welcome him in and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders, clinging to Rhett as the only solid thing in a dizzy swaying world.

The afternoon light was warm against her back but Rhett was fire itself. His mouth plundered hers, his tongue demanding her response. He tasted of sunlight and champagne, and just a hint of tobacco. His other hand moved down her back, no tentative skimming this time but a possessive touch that pressed her hard to his chest. His large hand covered her ass and squeezed, drawing her hips firmly up to his. She could feel the hot ridge of his erection rising along her belly, recognizing it with a surge of glee that he was not indifferent to her at all. She tightened her hands on his shoulders and rose up on tiptoe, arching as if she would climb him, her body acting on instinct to relieve the liquid ache between her thighs.

Rhett's hand moved under her ass and squeezed again, but this time he used the firm grip to lift her, one-handed, up to the sun-warmed counter. His arm wrapped her waist and held her tightly. Their tongues tangled, fighting an intimate battle for dominance with no victor. She slid her hands along his shoulders and pushed her fingers into his thick hair, and knowing she was disordering his so-careful appearance, that irritating perfection, added a fillip of triumph to her desire. The thought of her husband blurred to nothingness with Rhett's body against hers and his mouth, the electric kiss, possessing her utterly. She tightened her hands in his hair and lifted her legs to wrap around his waist. Rhett groaned against her mouth and his arm flexed around her. The movement drew her fevered, inchoate interest and she moved her hands down to his arms, learning the contours of his biceps and feeling the almost imperceptible tremble in his muscles.

With Rhett's long legs, the counter placed her at the perfect height for their hips to meet. Scarlett barely registered the clatter of a shoe falling to the floor as she linked her ankles and ground against the hard bulge between Rhett's legs. With her legs locking their bodies together, his hands started to roam as eagerly as hers, the large palms drawing scorching paths up and down her back, the curves of her hips, and finally - oh, fuck, finally tracing up her ribs to cup her breasts. Scarlett broke the kiss and let her head fall back as she leaned away from his chest to give him access. Rhett curved his tall body over her, kissing along her cheekbone and down her jaw as he gently squeezed her breasts and rolled his thumbs over her nipples. Scarlett's breath caught on a whimper. It had been so long since she had been touched like this. She had never been touched like this. Don't stop, don't stop, desire whispered in her head, unaware that she was speaking aloud until Rhett rasped against her ear, "Never," before tugging the lobe between his teeth. Her nerves were on fire and she squirmed on the smooth surface of the counter, overwhelmed by the sensory assault. Her skin seemed alive, buzzing under Rhett's caresses.

Buzzing. No - really buzzing. "Fuck," she cursed, jerking upright so quickly their heads bashed together. "Ow! Damnit. No, no, no," she chanted, pushing at Rhett's chest with one hand while the other dug into her pocket for the vibrating cell phone. FRANK, flashed the caller ID. Rhett stepped away, and she shivered at the touch of cool air where warm body had been a moment before. Scarlett stared at her hand as if she held a water moccasin, not a cell phone. She lifted her head, searching out Rhett's face for some sort of guidance, but he had turned away. He grabbed the champagne bottle and started pouring it out in the sink.

With the phone rumbling in her hand, Scarlett dropped off the counter and slid her foot back into the heel that had dropped. She hustled into the dining room and pressed her back against the wall before sliding her thumb across the screen. Accept.

"Frank?" she questioned immediately, and winced at the quaver in her voice.

"Scarlett," he said. He hadn't called her sugar since their argument, knowledge which only compounded the guilt freezing her gut. "Honey, I thought I could pick up some dinner on my way home. So you wouldn't have to make anything tonight."

Oh, God, she wanted to moan out loud. She pressed a clammy palm against her forehead. I'm a terrible person, I'm a terrible person…"Sure," she managed to choke out. "Sounds great."

"What would you like to eat?"

"Anything. You pick."

"Is everything alright, honey?"

"Yes. I'm - I'm just finishing up here, Frank. On my way out the door."

"Me, too. I'll get the kids and dinner, and see you at home in about an hour?"

"Perfect," Scarlett said through gritted teeth.

"See you soon, honey."

Unable to bring herself to say anything more, Scarlett ended the phone call. She stayed for a moment, her body stiff against the wall, then without a word to Rhett she went through the living room, collected her purse from the floor, and exited out the front door.


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning Scarlett was half-afraid that Rhett would be waiting for her at the house, but it was empty. She sat on the stairs, avoiding the rest of the interior, and stayed just long enough to direct the crew that arrived with the seven-foot sofa. She set the keys on the fireplace mantel and left through the front door, locking the knob before pulling it shut behind her.

Done. The accomplishment felt hollow, an ending with no new beginning in sight. There were projects to be tackled at the flip. She dreaded it. Projects with Frank; and when they were completed, and the house ready to be sold, there would be nothing to take their place. She had said they could take a break and if nothing else, guilt would hold her to that now.

She couldn't think about that. It made her empty stomach queasy, and vomiting in Rhett's neat landscaping wouldn't help anything. She would think about that later, when she could stand it. There were jobs to do, decisions to be made, and Frank was expecting her to show up with lunch for them both.

On impulse, she took a detour to Melanie's house.

"Scarlett?" Mel asked, opening the screen door with Ella on her hip. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, it's fine. I was just on my way to have lunch with Frank and I thought he'd like to see Ella."

"Oh, that's a wonderful idea!" Melanie beamed at her and then at Ella. "Do you want to go see your daddy, sweetie?"

Scarlett managed a thin smile. "I have to run some errands this afternoon so I'll probably bring her back in a couple of hours, if that's okay?"

"Of course, Scarlett. You know she's always welcome here, and Wade."

"Thank you."

It was the kind of exchange that, with other people, might find itself stuck in an awkward pause while both parties tried to figure out how to move the conversation along. Melanie never let anyone feel awkward in her presence.

"Are you in a hurry? Please, do come in and visit for just a little bit."

It was just one of the gifts that had at first made Scarlett resentful of the other girl. She, herself, was never soothing nor inclined to any special effort to set others at ease. That was a talent her mother had possessed, and one which Scarlett had always thought she would acquire someday, when she was ready - older, more mature. If they could get a little more money ahead - just a little more, so she wouldn't have to push so hard. She could afford to be kind, then. In the meantime, she let Melanie draw her into the house and set her on the sagging couch in the front room. Melanie put Ella down on a brightly colored blanket and lowered herself to the floor by the baby.

"We haven't had any time to visit, you've been so busy!" Mel exclaimed, dangling a plush rattle in front of Ella.

Scarlett struggled not to fidget. "I'll have more time now. I'm done with Rhett….'s house."

Melanie sighed. "Did he really order a whole new library?"

"Yes," Scarlett said shortly, not caring to discuss Rhett.

"Won't you tell me about it?"

Scarlett stared at her blankly, trying to formulate a better response than, It's just a lot of books. Melanie and Ashley's home was full of books, stacked as tall as the end table next to the sofa, overflowing from the floor-to-ceiling shelves that ran along one wall of the living room.

"Gah!" stated Ella, before launching into a stream of babble that distracted both women.

"She's becoming quite the little storyteller," Melanie teased, tickling the baby's tummy.

"She's not really saying anything!" Scarlett said, sliding off the couch to join Mel on the floor next to her daughter.

"Oh, no, not really. But I like to encourage her as if she is." Scarlett felt the unspoken question, Don't you ever do that?, hung in the air, but Melanie would never say something so critical. That kindness, the sweetness that was as much a part of Melanie as her dark brown eyes, had once felt false and cloying to Scarlett who did not appreciate her friendly overtures. Since Scarlett's return to Atlanta, more especially just in these last months after Ella's birth, she had come to appreciate the gentleness of Melanie Wilkes. Mel reminded her of her mother. Scarlett had only had to clear her head of Ashley to be able to see Melanie clearly.

Only. As if her flawed hopes had drawn aside as easily as the wind pushes away the clouds, and not been accompanied by sleepless nights and an embarrassing amount of crying.

Tossing her head, Scarlett stretched out a hand and tickled Ella's palm until she gripped Scarlett's finger, and then immediately tried to pull the digit into her mouth. Mel laughed while the baby continued to babble.

"Is that so, darling? Oh, do tell! And what happened next?" Mel cooed, asking questions as if Ella's nonsense words would answer her. Scarlett studied Ella's face. She still looked too much like Frank. Suddenly annoyed, Scarlett stood and went over to the front window. She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared with unseeing eyes out over the sparse front lawn while Melanie and Ella continued to enjoy their nonsensical conversation.

She was procrastinating, trying to put off spending time with Frank. They had barely spoken that morning, as Scarlett was never at her best in the early hours and both had been busy getting themselves and the children ready for the day. She did not particularly want to see him now. What should she say? Should she tell him about what had happened with Rhett? Twice. What she had done twice. She tightened her hands around her upper arms, digging in her nails. If she did, then what? Hell, even if she didn't - now what?

There had to be a way forward. She just didn't see it.

"Darling?" Melanie's soft voice was unexpectedly near. The term of endearment still made Scarlett's jaw clench. Melanie would not call her that if she knew even one tenth of the truth. "Is everything alright? You seem distracted today."

Friendly was not the same as friends. As heavy as this burden was there was still no way she could share it with Melanie.

"Everything's fine. I've just been really busy, that's all. But we're going to take a break after this house," Scarlett said, turning to Melanie.

"Oh, that's wonderful! You both deserve a little time off."

Scarlett froze. You both. Because the break wouldn't just mean not working, it would mean days and days with Frank. Maybe that would be good. Maybe she could find the affection that had disappeared since their wedding. He deserved that. He deserved a lot of things that she hadn't been paying any attention to for a very long time.

Turning away from the window, Scarlett saw Melanie next to her with Ella in her arms. She reached out and Melanie let her scoop the girl into her own embrace.

"We should be going. Frank's waiting for his lunch. I suppose Ella is, too."

"It was so good of you to stop by," Melanie said, drawing Scarlett and Ella into a hug.

"I'll text you before I bring Ella back for the afternoon."

"Perfect. Thank you for letting me spend so much time with this little pumpkin!" Melanie gently pinched one of Ella's round cheeks and the baby squealed, a bright, happy sound.

"No, thank you," Scarlett said, with heartfelt gratitude. "I don't know what we would do without you and Pitty."

"It's our pleasure, truly."

Melanie walked them out to the car, standing back while Scarlett settled Ella into the car seat, then handing Scarlett the diaper bag filled with her things. Scarlett tossed that in the front seat next to her purse, hugged Melanie again and, with reluctant grace, accepted a kiss on the cheek from the other woman before getting in the car and driving away.

"Frank, we're here," Scarlett called, shoving in through the front door with a white carry-out bag in one hand and Ella's car seat gripped in the other.

"We?" questioned Frank, brushing dust off himself as he entered. "What a pleasant surprise!" he exclaimed, so clearly happy that Scarlett felt choked anew by guilt. She shoved the bag of food at him.

"Where should we eat?"

Frank, who had bent over to make kissy faces at Ella, straightened up. "I put a clean dropcloth down in here. I thought it would be a nice spot for a picnic." He leaned forward, brushing a kiss against Scarlett's cheek.

"That's great," she answered, closing her eyes.

"Scarlett?"

Scarlett opened her eyes again and managed a smile. "Yeah."

They settled on the paint-stained fabric, Ella still in the carseat between them. Scarlett picked at her sandwich with no appetite to speak of.

"I think we got a problem," Frank said roughly before taking a bite of his sandwich.

"What kind of problem?"

"A house up the street was hit by copper thieves last night. Cops came over this morning to talk to me about it."

"Shit," Scarlett exclaimed, then covered her mouth with a guilty look at the baby. Frank grinned and reached across the makeshift blanket to squeeze her knee.

"Good thing she can't understand you yet, honey." He winked and Scarlett managed a strained smile in response. "Yeah," Frank went on, leaning away again, "completely tore up the place. You know we're vulnerable. We're just lucky they didn't hit us first. Maybe they're new to the area, if they haven't been watching the house they wouldn't realize we've done the hard work for them." Scarlett nodded, trying to stay focused even as panic threatened her. She needed this house, this sale, especially since she had agreed it would be their last for the year.

"What are the police going to do about it?"

Frank shrugged. "Investigate."

"No," she bit out, her best intentions of being nice to her husband faltering in the face of anxiety. "I mean what are they going to do for us? They'll have someone watch the house for us, won't they?"

"Uhm-"

"We are clearly at risk, Frank. It's in their best interests to prevent a crime - and maybe even catch the thief in the act."

"Well - they didn't say-"

"Did you ask?"

"Now, honey, I'll take care of it."

"You'll call them?"

"Uhm - well, no-"

"Frank, you know those thieves destroy houses. They cause thousands of dollars in damage. We can't afford to repair that!"

Frank gave her a patronizing smile that made rage boil in her veins. She wanted to claw that smug expression from his face. Being nice because of her own bad behavior was one thing; surely putting up with his stupidity didn't have to be part of her self-imposed penance?

"Don't you worry, Scarlett. I'll spend the night until the cops catch them."

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm sure it won't be long. With that new task force, they'll get caught as soon as they try to sell the stuff to a scrap dealer. Just a few nights is all. You'll be okay with the kids, won't you?"

"Frank, I-"

"You could stay with Melanie!"

"We'll be alright," Scarlett snapped. "But this is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Just call the police."

"I really don't think that's necessary."

"Fine! I don't care. Sleep wherever you want." The words had spilled out innocently enough, but Scarlett was mortified to hear them. Was it her imagination, or had Frank gone a little pale? He means well. You're the one who's all but committed adultery. Don't be a bitch. "As long as it's just for a few days," she added hastily, reaching across the dropcloth to pat him awkwardly on his knee.

Two days later, the police had no suspects in the theft and no further houses had been burglarized. Scarlett did not suggest that Frank give up his nocturnal watch. She wouldn't trust anyone until the thief was caught or the house sold. Before going to bed, she spoke with Frank briefly on the phone, and sent him a few new photos of Ella after they hung up. She'd been running back and forth between their house, the flip, and the Wilkeses, shuttling children and food; and driving all over town besides to place orders and choose materials for the flip. She'd been too busy to think, except at night.

If she could just get through a few more weeks, she could go home. She hadn't been there in months; that was inexcusable when they lived so close. She'd just been so busy with the flips and Rhett's house, and even on the weekends there hadn't been any time. Too, since Suellen had moved back there, the thought of going home had lost a little appeal. She was never too fond of spending time with her sister. But now her own distress outweighed other concerns.

Something about going home always cleared her head. Most of the land that had surrounded the farmhouse when it was built had been sold long before she was born, but not so much that the old house was as hemmed in as a city yard. She had room to breathe at Tara, but more importantly, room to think. She desperately needed to think, about both what she had done and then - what came next? There was no excusing her actions with Rhett, and even if no one else knew what had happened, she could not forget. Oh, she didn't dwell on it all the time, but her dreams-

In the early hours of the morning, Scarlett lay awake, in a welter of guilt and arousal, fear and regret. She was in conflict with herself, and she was not very adept at the complexities of self-examination. She struggled to reconcile what she had done, and more - what she had felt with Rhett Butler; and her obligation, gratitude, and the echoes of the fondness she had felt for Frank; the children; the rules of her lapsed faith. Try as she might, she could see no way to arrange these pieces into any form that would both make her happy and satisfy the requirements of her obligations. At home, at Tara, her head would be clearer. If only her mother would be there! She couldn't have disappointed her mother with an honest confession, but just to be near her again, to lay her head in her mother's lap and feel her gentle hand stroking her hair would have been soothing enough.

By the time Ella began to cry, Scarlett had managed only a few hours of sleep. After the baby was fed, Scarlett stayed in the rocker, moving slowly back and forth while Ella mumbled softly to herself. She forced herself to move again only when the smell of the baby's soiled diaper reached her nose.

"That's not very ladylike," she whispered affectionately as she moved to the changing table. Ella patted her face and she smiled at her daughter, her heart genuinely warmed by the baby's sweetness.

Until the diaper was off and Ella started to scream, and didn't stop for another half an hour. By that time, Wade was awake, and there was no more time for thinking. Quiet the baby, feed Wade and get both of them and herself dressed and everyone out the door - to school, to Melanie's, to the flip.

After she had dropped Ella off, transferring the again-sleeping baby into Melanie's waiting arms, Scarlett called Frank from the car and listened to it ring. Rolling her eyes, Scarlett thumped her head against the headrest. "Come on, Frank," she muttered. "Answer your fucking phone."

She tried to dial one more time then gave up, shoving her phone back in her purse. For a moment, she was tempted to be petty and show up empty-handed since he couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone. If he was sleeping in when she had been up since dawn with the baby...but she couldn't bring herself to be so vindictive.

With a McDonald's bag in one hand, Scarlett let herself into the quiet house, calling Frank's name as she turned the knob. He had borrowed a camping cot from a friend and set it up in the living room. As she entered it took Scarlett a moment to piece everything together.

Something glittered on the floor in front of the large front window. She took another step forward. There was a hole in the glass. Frank lay on the cot in the middle of the room. She opened her mouth to scold him but bit her lip. Something was wrong. It was too quiet. Frank had a terrible habit of snoring. With a cross glance at the broken window, she went to the bed and put her hand on Frank's shoulder.

"Frank," she said clearly, shaking him. "Fra- Oh my God." Something warm trickled over her fingers.

Scarlett dropped the McDonald's bag. The smell of warm food rising from it had begun to make her feel nauseous, and she kicked it aside so she could kneel next to the cot. "Frank?" she tried again, one last time, setting her hand back on his shoulder. He still didn't answer, though she no longer expected a response. She could see clearly that he had been shot through the head.

* * *

 _Friends, I talked a big game when I started posting this about not tucking it behind the M-wall because something like 15% or less of this story merits that rating, but I might back down from that. If you're interested in reading, please make sure you're following this story - future updates might disappear from the main ffnet page. Otherwise just check back every Tuesday, I don't have any plans to miss a week._

 _Thank you for reading and reviewing! Feel like maybe I should apologize to OblongCreamPuff who only just left a review about how nice it was to have the relationship with Frank in focus...whoops._


	12. Chapter 12

According to the police, it was not the copper thieves that had killed her husband. Just a stray bullet, an unlucky accident. These things happened. It was unfortunate. They would do their best.

The next weeks passed in a haze, out of which Scarlett would never fully retrieve the details of those days. Time and events were telescoped, jumbled together like a nightmare that had no reality or reason. Scarlett moved like a sleepwalker, making the appropriate arrangements, gestures, and responses through a protective layer of shock. So thoroughly numb was she that it did not even cause a ripple of concern when she offloaded the flip house to a predatory opportunist who was willing to take a cheap deal without caring about the home's recent history. She never wanted to see it again. It was better to take the loss than to hang on, paying mortgage payments on a brick albatross that would only deteriorate as it sat empty.

The memories that survived this fog were worse than the blank spots. The pity in Melanie's brown eyes as she wrapped her soft hand around Scarlett's own, white-faced Suellen holding their father's arm at the cemetery, herself cursing at Ashley when he came to the house because she couldn't bear to look at him.

Now she couldn't wait to get out of town, to Tara. She would rather bear even Suellen's accusatory eyes than stay in this house any longer. Maybe she would sell that, too - in another few months, when she could think clearly.

She had brought the children to Melanie's to spend the night so that she could finish packing for their extended retreat. With suitcases and duffel bags packed and piled by the door, she prowled the empty house, unsettled. The bedroom smelled like Frank - she had been sleeping on the couch for a month. His things still hung in the closet. Scarlett had started to go through them almost immediately after the funeral, but the horrified expression on Melanie's face had told her plainly enough that her hurry was unseemly. It wasn't that she didn't grieve for Frank, but her guilt was far stronger and she couldn't bear to be around all these reminders of her late husband. He had been a good man, far better than she had deserved. Everywhere she looked in this house she could see his face, accusing her with a hangdog expression.

She needed a drink. She couldn't wait for the morning, when she would load up the car and the children and take them all out of town. Since her pregnancy, the only alcohol in the house had been her box of wine and Frank's beers, both of which had been emptied in the immediate aftermath of the funeral.

Scarlett grabbed her keys from the counter. She stopped by the back door and looked in the mirror out of habit. She was fully made up because that, too, was habit, just another part of her morning ritual, so ingrained that it would never occur to her not to wear make-up for any reason or excuse. Her hair was mussed from her exertions while packing, so she ran her fingers through it until the cowlicks mingled with the rest of the thick black strands and the whole heavy curtain of it settled more or less neatly around her shoulders. She was dressed casually, jeans and an oversized Georgia Tech sweatshirt from her sole year of college, purchased to hide her pregnancy. Normally she would never even consider being seen outside of the house dressed like this. She hesitated in front of the mirror before deciding that it would be worse to be seen at a bar all dressed up a bare month after her husband's death. If she saw anyone she knew…

It had been bad enough at the funeral and the burial. She would swear everyone had been looking at her, blaming her. Everyone knew he had been Sue's boyfriend first. Did they know about Rhett? They couldn't. Nothing had happened outside of that house. But her own guilt had sat heavily on her under the accusatory eyes of Frank's friends, who had never really been hers.

There was a tiny dance bar that she had loved years ago - the first couple of months in college, and later, after Wade's birth, when Pitty and Melanie could always be counted on to watch the baby and she could go out and forget she had one. It was the kind of place she could go and be utterly anonymous, but it would be cramped and hot, and she didn't want to dance. She just wanted to drink.

So Scarlett ended up at the next place she saw, a hole-in-the-wall in Midtown, and decided to stay there on the strength of the rum diet the bartender made. She perched awkwardly on a stool at the bar, sipping the drink until a tiny table opened and she made a beeline for the more isolated spot, the last table on the end of a long wall-hugging bench. She did not want to talk to anyone. A waitress came and took her order for another drink, then she settled back with her phone in hand to make sure the "stay the fuck away" look was complete.

The second drink arrived on her table, just at the top of her vision. "Thanks," she muttered, reaching for the glass.

"You shouldn't drink alone, Scarlett. It's bad for your reputation."

Scarlett's head flew up. "Rhett? What are you doing here?"

Rhett lifted a glass filled with dark liquor. "Same as you, it seems. May I join you? For the sake of my reputation." He winked.

She should say no, close her tab, and leave, but she could not bring herself to deny him. Looking up at him, she knew he was the only person in town she truly wanted to see. Stretching out a leg under the table, Scarlett pushed back the empty chair across from her with her foot and Rhett sat. He scooted the chair around the table until they were so close their shoulders almost touched, and they could hear each other without shouting over the background noise of the bar.

He studied her without speaking, with a searching gaze that did not bring discomfort but relief. She felt as if Rhett could see through her but, strangely, this thought did not embarrass her.

"What's the matter, honey?"

Scarlett took a large swallow of her drink, and the bite of the rum stung away the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. Rhett stretched out an arm and stroked his thumb slowly along the base of her thumb and down to the wrist.

"Everything," she managed to choke out. "Oh, Rhett, everything is terribly wrong."

"I don't mean to sound callous, Scarlett, but this is about more than just Frank's death, isn't it? I thought you never cared that much for him."

Rhett spoke calmly, with neither accusation nor innuendo. She took comfort in his matter-of-fact manner that did not throw their lapse back in her face.

"You know I didn't," she answered miserably. "I never should have married him. He loved Sue until I decided to make him love me instead. I made him miserable, and then I killed him."

"How did you do that?"

"He didn't even want to buy that house, and I pushed him. I had to have it. I thought we would be able to turn so much profit on it…"

"I don't think you give Frank enough credit. Men are free agents. He didn't have to let you bully him, did he?"

"Bully him!"

"Well, what would you call it?"

Scarlett tried to scowl but the expression faltered without real venom to sustain it.

"Why worry about it? You couldn't have done any differently, unless you were somebody else."

"I should have been," she said dully, stirring the straw in her drink. "Because he should have married Sue. And then he'd still be alive."

"Perhaps, but I doubt he would have been any happier."

"I should have been nicer to him."

"I doubt you could have been."

"Pointing out to me what a terrible person I am is hardly helping, Rhett."

Rhett's hand wrapped around her wrist, startling her. "You're not a terrible person, Scarlett, but you are who you are. Just as Frank was."

"You're speaking nonsense."

"Why is this all bothering you now? What's the use of it?"

I'm scared, Scarlett thought. Because she could not say those words out loud, she took another sip of her drink, and another.

"It's so mixed up I don't know where to start. And it's all so stupid besides."

"You can tell me, Scarlett."

Scarlett looked at him across the table and saw his blank gaze, with nothing of judgement or malice, and his still, serious face. This was the Rhett she could talk to about anything, not the asshole who made jokes at her expense, and she took heart.

"I had to buy that house. I told him we'd take a break after that, but I only said it to get him to agree. I never meant to follow through, until...well…" Scarlett ducked her head for another drink, not wanting Rhett to read her face. "I needed the money. I've been so - so afraid, Rhett, you don't know what it was like when I went home before. My dad, he….he hasn't been the same since my mother died. The doctors say it's Alzheimer's but we didn't know for months, maybe years. He cashed out the house after he lost his job so he could pay for Sue and Carreen's tuition, but he wasn't making any payments...we almost lost everything. I pushed Frank to keep flipping. He thought we should slow down, that we were making enough money, but then my dreams would come back and I couldn't stop."

"Your dreams?" Rhett asked quietly, rubbing his thumb into her palm.

"They're just dreams, but they seem so real. I dream that we lose Tara, that the bank takes it away and my dad has nowhere to go because I've lost our house, too. We don't even have enough money to eat, and Wade…" Frustrated with herself, Scarlett raised her free hand to dash away tears. "I just have to have the money. It's never enough."

Rhett was no longer looking at her. His dark head was bent over the table. He raised the hand he held to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. When he lifted his gaze to hers, his black eyes were hard. "Do you need money?"

"What? No, no I...we'll be fine. I had to sell that house, I just - I can't go back. But Frank really was right. We had enough money to take a break." Suddenly the dam burst and, to Scarlett's dismay, tears ran freely down her face. "We have enough money, but I didn't listen, and I - I killed him!"

"Hush," Rhett said, moving quickly from his chair to sit beside her on the bench. He wrapped one strong arm about her shoulders and pressed her face to his chest. "You did not kill Frank. It was a senseless accident and there's no sense in you tearing yourself to pieces over it."

"But he wouldn't have been in that house if I hadn't insisted-"

Rhett cut her off mid-wail. "And he could have said no."

Scarlett sniffled. "But Frank…"

"You are not responsible for his weakness."

A fleeting impulse stirred in her to defend the honor of the dead and protest the slur, but her loyalty did not extend so far as to contradict common sense. Besides, the strong drink had started to work on her now, softening the blunt edges of conscience and remorse. Rhett spoke sense.

"Why are you here?" she asked, lifting a hand to pluck idly at the crisp fabric of his burgundy dress shirt.

"Because this bar still lets you smoke," Rhett answered, patting his chest pocket. Scarlett's curious fingers followed his and fished out a leather two-cigar case stamped with the monogram RKB on the flap. "Do you want one?"

"No." She shook her head against his chest and let the case slip back down. She reached out for her drink instead and sipped until the straw slurped nothing.

"Don't do that," Rhett murmured into her hair, taking the glass from her. "Do you want another one? What are you drinking?"

"Rum diet." She returned her idle fingers to his chest, tracing lines between the buttons of his shirt. When she pressed her palm down she could feel the texture of his chest hair through the shirt. With only one ear free, the noise of the bar was muted, and she felt as much as heard his voice when Rhett caught the attention of the waitress and ordered another round for both of them.

She was comforted by the strength of Rhett's body beneath and around hers, the heavy arm over her shoulder and the broad expanse of his chest beneath her cheek. Between his body and the alcohol, she felt warmed inside and out.

Rhett tugged at her sweatshirt. "You're looking very fashionable tonight."

"Shut up," she said with renewed cheer, and felt the rumble of his laughter in his chest.

The new drinks arrived and, reluctantly, Scarlett forced herself to sit up. Rhett did not go back to the chair but stayed at her side, their arms, hips, and thighs pressed together. As they drank, Rhett lowered his head from time to time to murmur cutting bon mots that made her laugh, a little guiltily. The patrons were mostly younger, college-aged, she observed bitterly. She had found out she was pregnant a couple of months into her only year of college, curtailing her participation in the social life of her peers.

With another sip of rum, Scarlett pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She had no patience for nostalgia. Looking back had never served any purpose. She had shut away those memories of pregnancy, childbirth, the first months of Wade's life when she had been so isolated at home. She would not open them again.

She turned her face into Rhett's shoulder and, closing her eyes, inhaled deeply the odors of cologne and bourbon. With casual ruthlessness, she banished guilt and Frank behind the locked doors of her memory. Rhett was right. She couldn't have done any differently.

Halfway through her third drink, Scarlett was giddy. Her skin tingled, craving contact, as the liquor lit up her nerve endings. Rhett's mouth was moving as he sipped his own drink and kept talking to her, but she had stopped listening. His lips were dark in the under-lit bar room, full and clear cut beneath his black mustache. For some reason they fascinated her just now.

Abruptly, she raised her hand and pressed two fingers to his lips. Rhett lifted one eyebrow and the corner of his mouth went down as he looked at her.

"Stop talking," she ordered.

"And why sh-"

Frustrated with what she knew to be his simple contrariness, Scarlett lurched up and kissed him, dropping her hand to grip his shoulder and steady herself. His mouth stilled. Satisfied, she retreated. "I said stop talking," she proclaimed, drunk and regal. She sat back against his side and took another drink, wiggling closer as Rhett lifted his arm and wrapped it around her.

"When can I talk again," he whispered into her ear, and she jammed her elbow into his side. "Uff!" Rhett huffed, the exhale ruffling her hair. Scarlett lifted her chin, feeling very self-satisfied. And a little muddled, but that seemed of no import at the moment.

She felt something brush her hair again and wondered if it was Rhett's lips, the mouth that had been so fascinating just a moment ago. She would be rather pleased if it were, she decided. Kissing would be much more interesting than hearing him talk anymore. Her hair stirred, tickling her ear. She caught her breath and tightened her hand around her cold glass.

A moment later she felt the warmth of his lips closing around the top of her ear and she closed her eyes. His tongue dipped under the curving fold and she set her glass down hard on the table. Rhett chuckled, his breath cool on her damp skin, and a flash of irritation lit her. She pulled away a few inches and picked up her drink again, disappointed that Rhett made no effort to keep her near. He was so very provoking!

Scarlett drained the third drink and dangled the glass from her fingers. "I need another drink."

"I don't think you do," Rhett said, smoothly lifting the glass from her grip and setting it down - gently - on the table.

"I didn't say you could talk."

"I didn't require your permission."

Scarlett turned with her whole body to glare at him, her mouth set in a mutinous pout. "Fine. But Rhett," she softened in voice and body, bending her spine until her breasts just grazed his chest. "Do order me another drink," she said in a honeyed drawl.

Rhett grinned down at her, amusement sparkling in his bottomless gaze. "A glass of water, perhaps."

"I'll get my own," she snapped, pushing away from him. Again, Rhett let her go. She weaved through the crowd to the restroom before pushing her way into a spot at the bar. With a defiant impulse fueled by drink, she ordered a shot and another rum diet. She tossed the shot back at the bar, then took the glass with her to the table.

Rhett hadn't moved away, his long arm stretched now along the back of the bench. Scarlett slid back into her place by his side and that arm curled down around hers, his fingers stroking along the back of her hand. She noticed that his glass appeared full again. Hypocrite, she thought, sucking on her straw. Asshole. Idly, she wondered what other insults she could throw at him. It would be good to have a list ready to go. Jerk was too tame. Her fuzzy brain stumbled, unable to come up with anything worse. He smelled good. How could you insult a man who smelled so good? She didn't want to insult him, she wanted to bury her face against his neck and inhale.

The thought made her choke a little on her drink. She covered her mouth with her glass, not wanting to remove her other hand from beneath his touch, not wanting him to hear her spluttering and take the drink away. He would do it, too, because he was a jerk. Her grip tightened just in case.

Rhett appeared too wrapped up in the crowd, sipping slowly at his own drink, to notice her slip. Scarlett relaxed. This time, when she finished the drink, she set it down on the table herself and pushed it away. The sweating glass moved easily. Then she turned, curling into Rhett, and slid her cold fingers through the gap between two buttons. Rhett hissed and tensed, but said nothing. Scarlett held her fingers there until they warmed again before reluctantly slipping them out, a little disappointed by his lack of reaction. She studied the contours of his muscles beneath the shirt with the intense focus of a good buzz, pondering her next move. The alcohol stoked a craving for attention and a desire for physical contact even as it drowned sensible restraint and prudence. Her nerves were already on fire.

Arching her neck, she lifted her head and pressed her face between his neck and shoulder. He smelled so good that the next move made perfect sense in her sodden brain, and she slipped her tongue out to taste his skin. Gratifyingly, Rhett's arm tightened around her, pulling her hard against his side. She traced the long cord in his neck that ran from his ear to his shoulder where it disappeared behind the collar of shirt. Frustrated but not distracted, her mouth retraced the journey upward, finding his earlobe. Drawing the flesh between her teeth, she bit down and tugged gently.

Her hands were trapped, one held by Rhett's now-iron grip around her forearm, the other useless between their bodies. She turned that one against herself, pressing the palm to her own fluttery abdomen. The touch only intensified her physical craving. Why wouldn't Rhett respond?

She softened the bite, then released it and licked his earlobe, traced the curve of his ear top to bottom again with her tongue, kissed the spot behind his ear and sucked the skin into her mouth. Rhett swallowed and she followed the contraction with her mouth, only dimly hearing the clatter of his glass as he set it down on the table. She was too busy exploring the hard angle of his jaw now. The shadowy stubble scraped her lips as she dragged them over taut skin.

She avoided his mouth. Befuddled reasoning said that he had to kiss her. It was important to her that he make the first move, because men were supposed to; somehow this - the fervent movement of her mouth over all the skin she could reach - didn't count. She squirmed, lifting her leg between them to drape it over his thigh, shifting her slight inches closer. His big, warm hand closed over her knee.

Scarlett kissed and bit Rhett's chin, their mouths so close, yet still he made no move to kiss her. It frustrated her immensely and she yanked her arm free of his hold, brought her hand to his jaw and gripped tightly, holding his head in place so she could attack his jawline and neck. She sucked and bit without any regard for the crowded bar. Their location had long since faded from her awareness. She thought only of Rhett and her desire to provoke him into kissing her. Lifting her head, she pulled his chin back down and met his eyes, staring defiantly to hide any hint of pleading.

Rhett grinned his pirate's grin, the muscles in his jaw moving in her hand. He released her knee and captured her hand, drawing it away before kissing her cheek softly. Too softly, his kiss barely more substantial than the whisper of his mustache over her cheekbone. Scarlett held her breath as his lips moved too slowly toward her mouth.

She nearly cried with frustration when he stopped after just touching the corner of her lips. His mouth retreated to her ear, and he nuzzled aside her hair before whispering, "Let's go."

Scarlett left her car, knowing without conscious thought that if they split up so she could drive separately, she would never make it to his house. If she got in her car without him, she would end up back at home, alone with ghosts and guilt. She clutched Rhett's hand tightly, almost unable to let it go for him to walk around the car to the driver's side, and reclaimed it again as soon as they turned out of the parking lot. His grip was gratifyingly reciprocal.

Rhett's house was only ten silent minutes away. On the front step, his key in the lock, he paused. She could feel his gaze on her and steadfastly refused to look up, unwilling to risk anything that might puncture her drunken resolve. The door opened silently and Rhett took her hand again as they went up the stairs.

* * *

 _I will be posting the next chapter immediately, but that will contain adult, M-rated content - and I did make the change to disappear behind the M wall. This is a 2-for-1 update, basically just one chapter in two parts so that those who do not wish to read that content still get an update, and the second part can be skipped without major story loss if you'd rather bring down the curtain here._

 _Thank you for reading and reviewing! And I don't intend for Rhett to be a murderer, though since it's not explicitly written away you're welcome to think so. I originally intended for it to be copper thieves but it turns out they do a LOT of interior damage to a house, and I wanted Scarlett to realistically be able to unload the house rather quickly afterward. I made the change to hang it on a very unlucky accident, that is nonetheless not as rare an occurrence as it should be (innocent bystanders ending up shot inside their homes)._


	13. Chapter 13

_**This chapter contains adult content.**_ Though it's not JUST smut, it can still be skipped without major detriment if this isn't your thing.

* * *

The sight of his bed made her blush, remembering the night he had chosen it. She wondered if Rhett remembered too, as he came to stand behind her and wrapped an arm around her, trapping her against him.

"You're drowning in this," he muttered, his other hand tugging at the hem of her oversized sweatshirt. The weight of his arm disappeared, then both of his hands were inside the fleece and warmly pressing against her belly. She closed her eyes and leaned back against his chest while he moved his palms to her sides, squeezing her waist gently. He threaded his fingers together above her belly button, then trailed them just inside the waist of her jeans as he slid them back to her hips. Vanity breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness that she had shed the last of the baby weight weeks before.

Rhett dropped his head and kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder, the skin there revealed by the drooping neck of the sweatshirt. Scarlett tilted her head away and he nuzzled the arch of her neck, pressed a kiss behind her ear, then sucked the lobe firmly into his mouth. Her knees buckled and she sagged against him. Rhett's tongue traced the curves and whorls of her ear, toying with the sensitive skin.

Regaining her strength along with a surge of impatience, Scarlett turned and lifted her arms above her head. Rhett smirked but obediently dragged the hem of her sweatshirt up, and by the time the fabric was no longer blinding her the irritating expression was gone from his face. His eyes burned as he looked at her body, so fiercely that she forgot to be nervous. He spread his palms along her sides again, his fingers spanning her from waist to bra, then finally, finally, he bent his head to kiss her.

Her pulse surged as his lips covered hers. Her heart pounded and her world darkened to the feeling of Rhett's mouth on hers, the wet heat of his tongue as he probed for entrance. His kiss sent sparks flying over her skin, every inch of her tingling for his touch in their wake. She wanted to feel his skin on hers. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, forcing them through the narrow holes, until she could push it away from his shoulders and, rising on tiptoe, press herself against his chest.

Scarlett cupped Rhett's neck with one hand and slipped the other under his loosened shirt to wrap behind his shoulder. Rhett's hands moved over her sides and back and then she felt cool air underneath her shoulders as the clasp of her bra parted. As one big palm slid up between her shoulder blades her skin warmed again immediately. With his other hand, Rhett tugged the bra straps forward, so relentlessly that she was forced to drop her arms for fear he wouldn't stop but would rip the fabric off her. The bra slid away and he dropped it to the floor before gathering her close with both hands on her back.

Scarlett sought Rhett's mouth again as she surged up to meet him, revelling in the feel of her breasts crushed against the crisp hair covering his chest. She wiggled, abrading her nipples against the dark mat, and her toes curled into the carpet.

There was no one, no reason to stop them now. The swirling madness that had come over her was dragging her down into a sensual oblivion, and she submitted to desire with a completeness she had never before experienced. There was only now, only Rhett, only the fire under her skin that was familiar yet utterly new, the wild thrill no one else had ever made her feel. Not Charlie; not Ashley, the boy she had thought she had loved; certainly not poor Frank. Her mind shrank from the thought and she tightened her arms around Rhett.

Rhett's knees knocked into her legs as he started to move toward the bed, not breaking the kiss, forcing her to stumble backwards. A little indignant, Scarlett grabbed his shoulders and jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist. Rhett lifted his head and laughed, gripping her firmly under her ass. "Minx," he muttered under his breath, carrying her across the room. He palmed her thighs, making as if to lift her away, and she crossed her ankles and tightened her legs. Rhett nipped at her nose and turned around, sitting on the bed with Scarlett on his lap. Scarlett leaned back a little and pushed at his shirt until he released her, one arm at a time, so that she could slide the garment off him.

She pushed at his chest until Rhett tumbled back onto the mattress, his amused smile fading as he looked up at her. Scarlett's bold dominance wavered. Rhett raised one hand to cup her cheek and drew his thumb slowly over the high cheekbone.

"Scarlett," he rasped. She leaned down and kissed him.

Rhett took the advantage, easily flipping them over so that she was beneath him. His hands moved between their bodies until he found the fly of her jeans. The sound of the zipper was loud through the rush of blood in her ears. Rhett slid her pants off her hips, then stood to pull them all the way down her legs. He quickly undid his own button fly and shucked out of his narrow-legged denim. While he pulled off his socks, his eyes never leaving hers, Scarlett scooted away into the center of the bed, twining her own stockinged feet together and forcing herself to meet his gaze and not look away.

Rhett turned down the corner of the bedspread and she slid over to the exposed sheets. With a powerful yank, he bared the rest of the bed and left the covers crumpled at the foot. When he pressed one knee into the mattress, her strength of will failed and she dropped her eyes. Rhett paused, allowing her to drink him in.

His shoulders and chest were strong, somehow broader now that they weren't hidden by his clothing. Dark hair covered his chest and ran in a narrow line down his abdomen before spreading out again. His erection stood out proudly from that soft nest between his powerful thighs. Scarlett's mouth went dry as she looked at him, a strange possessive fire curling in her belly. Mine, her body seemed to say. She could feel the spreading dampness between her own legs.

Apparently deciding she had looked her fill, Rhett lifted his other knee to the mattress and crawled across the bed, coming up and over her legs until he hovered above her. He planted one hand beside her shoulder and reached between her legs to cup her firmly. Scarlett gave an involuntary cry and her hips rolled, pressing into his hand. One long finger curled upward, pressing the wet center of her underwear against her.

"Rhett," she whimpered, lifting her arms to draw him down. "Rhett," she said again against his mouth, before he kissed her with a ferocity that blotted out everything but his lips, his tongue, his hand; his fingers now curling under the thin strip of cotton. He stroked her with the backs of his fingertips, the smooth blunt edges of his nails just grazing her skin. It wasn't nearly enough. She jerked her hips, too needy for finesse. "Please," she whispered against his mouth, feeling her face grow hot.

She had two children. Of course she was no stranger to sex, but already with Rhett this was completely new. That one night with Charlie had never counted for much, fuzzy with alcohol, quick and painful. Her intimacies with Frank had been timid, hesitant; a quiet sort of desire that had quickly dried up and been replaced by the mercifully blurred awareness bestowed by her brandy bottle. These stunted experiences had not awakened the depth of her passion, and she felt unwelcomely awkward, uncomfortable, almost unable, to express her desire now.

Despite the alcohol she had consumed at the bar, Scarlett no longer felt drunk. Her nerves were too alive, her brain too aware, as if the fire in her blood had burned away the liquor and left passion in its place. Embarrassment and timidity were turning to char before the same blazing desire. Scarlett seized the bold impulse now stirring in her blood.

"Touch me," she whispered, and bit Rhett's lower lip. She couldn't stop the blush that accompanied her words, but she no longer cared.

Rhett shoved down the slim sides of her thong underwear, leaning away from her so that he could slide them all the way off her feet. He paused then, looking down at the pink and purple socks with a blonde Disney princess on them. He cocked an eyebrow at her and she stuck out her tongue. "What?" she asked pertly. Rhett grinned and moved back over her, leaving the socks.

The moment of sassy humor faded quickly as his heat enveloped her again. She lifted her arms to his neck and kissed the corner of his mouth. She teased his lips as his hand teased her body, skimming down her front without quite touching her skin, following the curve of her hip as it dipped and rose into her thigh. His thumb just barely brushed the curls between her legs before his hand moved upward again.

Frustrated, Scarlett bit at his lips again, taking the full lower curve between her teeth and tugging less than gently. "Touch me," she commanded. Rhett obeyed with gratifying speed and her head fell back as his fingers pressed between her legs, firmly covering her. One finger curled, slipping between her lips to find the wet welcome of her arousal. Her breath hitched and she threw one leg over his hip.

His hands stroked her, no longer teasing and gentle, drawing sounds from her mouth that Scarlett was sure she had never made before in her life. His thumb circled the aching bud and stroked across it firmly. Rhett lowered his head to her breasts, laving her nipples with broad strokes of his tongue. He took one into his mouth and sucked softly.

Startled, Scarlett panicked and flinched away from his mouth. "I - I don't know - Rhett, I might-" she babbled frantically.

Rhett kissed her, kissed her, kissed her until she subsided, until she returned his kisses, sighed into his mouth and relaxed beneath him.

"Does it hurt?" he asked then, nuzzling at her cheek. She shook her head, feeling Rhett's mustache against her skin. He lifted his head and looked down at her seriously. "You're gorgeous," he stated. Scarlett blinked, a little taken aback by such a plain-spoken compliment, from Rhett of all men. "You won't disgust me, or scare me away. Tell me if you don't like something. Tell me if I hurt you, if I need to slow down." His eyes darkened. "Did you and Frank have sex after Ella was born?" Scarlett shook her head again and dropped her gaze, feeling unequal to the intensity in his and the honesty of the conversation.

"Scarlett. Look at me. Do you want to stop?"

"No," she answered, barely above a whisper.

"I'm glad," he said, his own voice dropping. "Tell me what feels good." He nuzzled her cheek again.

"Rhett, I-" His hand, which had been still so long she had almost forgotten where it was, flexed. "Oh!"

"A good thing?" He kissed the corner of her mouth.

"Yes."

Rhett kissed her, a soft brush of his lips that quickly deepened. She held him close with her arms around his shoulders, her tongue tasting his lips and mouth as his fingers continued to stroke her. He traced hot, open-mouth kisses over her jaw and down her neck until he reached her breasts again.

"Tell me," he said, circling a nipple with his tongue.

Scarlett arched her back, straining with her body to convey the words she still could not bring herself to say. Thank God it was Rhett, though, Rhett who always saw through her. His mouth covered her nipple again, gently tormenting her with his lips and tongue until she was moaning and twisting beneath him, her hands tight on his head so he couldn't move away. Constrained by her firm grip, he trailed his mouth down the side of her breast to her breastbone, then up to lavish her other nipple with the same thorough treatment.

With his hand between her thighs, he pressed one blunt fingertip to her opening and eased it slowly inside her. Her muscles twitched with something like shock, but though she braced herself against it there was no pain. As she adjusted to the intrusion, the reflexive spasm became a greedy clench as her muscles tried to draw him in deeper.

"Oh, God," he groaned, breaking away from her breast and belying the effectiveness of her grip as he drew his head up and buried his face against her neck. "Scarlett," he said, over and over as he kissed and licked the sweat-salty skin of her neck. Slowly - too slowly for her rampaging lust, reason be damned - he added a second finger to the first, rocking them gently into her. Her hips reciprocated the movement, rising up to meet his hand.

Rhett lifted his head and met her eyes with a fevered gaze. "Are you ready?" he rasped with a tinge of desperation in his deep voice.

"Yes," she answered with more confidence than she really felt, relying on blind lust to make up the difference. "Yes."

Rhett took his hand away and, not breaking eye contact, brought his fingers up and sucked the evidence of her arousal from them. Mindless hunger surged in her at the erotic display and Scarlett lifted her head to attack his mouth with her own, tasting herself on his lips and tongue.

She felt his weight ease off her. Rhett rolled away, one arm stretched out to the nightstand. A moment later he lay back, tearing open a small foil square and unrolling the condom as he slid it on. He rolled back to her, kissing her as he covered her with his body again, bracing himself above her on one arm. His other hand, large and warm, cupped her ass as the tip of his erection probed between her thighs. Fighting her own nervous reflexes, Scarlett tried to focus on the kiss, curling her tongue around Rhett's and pulling back to draw him into her mouth.

She did tense when the head slipped inside her. Rhett stilled, pulling away from their kiss to stare at her, the depths of his black eyes burning. She kissed his clenched jaw. He held still for an endless moment before rocking his hips forward ever so slightly.

"It doesn't hurt," she breathed over his cheek.

"Are you sure?" Rhett sounded as if every syllable was painful.

"Yes. Please, Rhett." Scarlett tightened her arms and pressed her lips to the thin line of his, kissing him over and over until his mouth softened. He took her mouth again as he slid home inside her, swallowing Scarlett's cry of pleasure. "Don't stop," she begged when he pulled back.

Rhett rocked his hips slowly back and forth until her own began to meet his rhythm. He groaned and buried his face in her neck, steadily increasing the speed and force of his thrusts. She could feel his lips and mustache against her skin as he murmured words she couldn't hear. In her tumult, she wondered for a moment what he said, wanted to know what he was hiding from her, felt with childish jealousy that he was keeping from her something that she wanted. But the relentless movement of his body above and within hers quickly drove all thought from her mind.

There was nothing in the world but the wild thrill that passed from Rhett's body to hers, the darkness between them into which she was sinking deeper with every thrust of his hips. She surrendered to the tide of rapture overpowering her defenses. Her head tossed against the pillows, her arms tightened around his shoulders as his hips pounded against hers, all bonds of restraint broken. And she reveled in it.

Something was building inside her, a sweet ache drawing tighter and tighter in her belly. She tried to focus on it, chasing that feeling that had always remained elusively just out of her reach - always ending in disappointment - she refused to be disappointed tonight.

"Stop thinking," Rhett groaned into her ear, suddenly loud again. "Relax, baby," he said in that deep masculine purr only he possessed. He kissed her ear, her neck, and sank his teeth into her shoulder. She cried out, utterly unprepared and surprised as release shook her. The knot in her belly explosively unraveled when his teeth pressed into her skin. Her body arched and clenched around him as fireworks filled her blood, blotting out everything but pure physical sensation.

"Yes!" Rhett barked, his hips snapping once, twice more before he pressed himself deep inside her and stayed there, the fullness of the sensation all that registered in her fevered senses. She continued to tremble as her orgasm receded in quaking waves that left her weak.

"Rhett," she whispered in amazement, turning her head as she blindly sought the comfort of his body. Her boneless arms somehow managed to hang on to him. Holding her close, Rhett rolled to his side next to her and she burrowed against his chest, feeling as if she could never get close enough to this man. His legs moved along hers and his hands swept her back, covered her rear and then she felt cool cotton over her skin. Somehow he had grabbed the sheet from the mess at the foot of the bed.

Drunkenness had long since been wiped away, and as arousal faded too, unwelcome reason tried to raise its head. "My car," she mumbled.

"Will be fine until morning."

"You're paying if it gets towed."

Rhett's chest shook with laughter under her cheek. "If you get impounded, I'll buy you a brand new car."

"A convertible," Scarlett insisted with drowsy greed.

"Whatever you want, baby," Rhett said, kissing her temple. "Go to sleep."

Scarlett slid her feet along Rhett's calves, feeling the crisp hairs under one foot. One of her socks had stayed on, so she dug her toes into the heel to pull it off before twining her feet through his legs again. Rhett was still kissing her temple and the crown of her head, so she lifted her face to his. He kissed her mouth softly.

"Goodnight, Rhett," she mumbled into the kiss.

"Goodnight, love," he answered quietly.

The term of endearment struck her as out of his usual sardonic line, but her satisfied and sleepy mind couldn't fix on it. She would think about it in the morning.


	14. Chapter 14

_Regularly scheduled T rating mostly for language._

* * *

Warmth, soft cotton, the smell of cologne and sex. Scarlett's senses pieced together the morning slowly, reluctantly, aware at the edges of her consciousness that the return to reality would not be kind. Rhett's arm was across her ribs and she rolled toward him, nuzzling at his shoulder until he turned on to his side and she could cuddle against his chest. She felt safe and protected for the first time in years.

The pressure of her bladder pushed her unwilling mind toward full wakefulness. She had to get up. Still a little drowsy, she kissed Rhett's scratchy chin before crawling out of the bed. She saw her sweatshirt on the floor near the foot and pulled it over her head on her way into the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, she put her head in her hands.

"Fuck," she muttered.

The deluge came suddenly. Fuzzy, alcohol-blurred memories from the bar; crystal-clear recollections from the bedroom. And guilt. Washing her hands, she stared at herself in the mirror as if searching for some physical consequence. She certainly hadn't wasted any time completing the betrayal they had begun when Frank had still been alive. A surge of bile choked her and she rushed back to the toilet, lifting up the seat and vomiting into the bowl.

She had to leave. She couldn't face Rhett. None of this should have happened.

Scarlett rinsed her mouth and splashed her face. Moving slowly on the balls of her feet, she crept back into the bedroom and collected her jeans from the floor. She didn't see her socks or underwear anywhere; possibly, they were in the bed somewhere. Rhett hadn't stirred, but pawing through the sheets was far too risky. With her sweatshirt hanging below her ass, she went swiftly down the stairs before she stopped to pull her jeans on. Their shoes were tossed together just inside the front door. Wrinkling her nose, she slipped her bare feet into her sneakers. Scarlett fought the temptation to walk through the house - at least the main floor - just to see how Rhett had settled in, if he had already changed anything. She wouldn't come back here. She couldn't trust herself.

Scarlett turned the lock in the knob and closed it behind her. She had to go home and change her clothes, load up the car, and collect the children. She didn't have time to think about what had happened.

Later that day

R-I stopped by your house. Do I have the wrong address?

S-No

R-Scarlett?

S-We aren't there. We left this morning for Tara.

Rhett did not answer. Scarlett was not relieved by his silence; it felt ominous, and she wondered when the other shoe would drop. How could she have been so stupid?

The drive to Tara did not take long, and in less than an hour she was lifting Ella out of her carseat as Wade scrambled across the front lawn to give his Grandpa a hug. Gerald was having a good day; he ruffled the boy's hair and called him by name, then bellowed with gusto, "And where's my little grandbaby?"

"Hi, Dad," Scarlett said, kissing him on the cheek and giving Ella over to his waiting arms. Gerald O'Hara was a short man, hardly taller than his daughter - who claimed four inches over five feet, when she stretched. His hair had gone bright white in recent years, and the curly mess was always rumpled. His round cheeks were florid, his bright blue eyes kind when they twinkled - though these days, they were too often vacant instead.

"It's been too long since we've seen you, daughter," he scolded as he lifted the little girl over his head. "My, she's gotten big! Where's that husband of yours?"

Scarlett swallowed painfully. Not that good a day, then. "Is Mrs. Ruth here?"

Gerald huffed. "Yes, yes, my nanny is waiting for me to come back inside."

Scarlett clenched her jaw. "Where's Sue?"

"Oh, your sister's around somewhere," Gerald said vaguely. Scarlett couldn't tell if he truly didn't know or was trying to cover for something he had forgotten.

She was not eager to face Suellen. Sue had come to Atlanta for Frank's funeral, looking the whole time as if she wanted to claw Scarlett's eyes out.

"Hello, Scarlett," came a cool voice from the porch.

"Well speak of the devil," Scarlett retorted.

"I do hope you'll give him my regards someday."

"After you."

"Daddy, Mrs. Ruth is looking for you," Suellen said sweetly, ignoring Scarlett.

"Wade, come get your backpack," Scarlett said shortly, turning away as Sue put her arm around their father and cooed at Ella. As they walked to the car, Scarlett checked her phone.

No messages.

No messages the next day, nor the next week. By Christmas morning, she still hadn't heard from Rhett. She told herself she didn't want to hear from him. She owed it to Frank. Nothing could come of it. She told herself many things, and berated herself for still caring.

After the gifts were opened, Scarlett was cleaning up the wrapping paper strewn around the living room while Suellen sat curled on the threadbare couch with her phone. Probably she was texting her new boyfriend, some local dropout named Will. Wade was outside with Carreen, testing out his new bike; and both Gerald and Ella were napping upstairs.

At first she thought it was just a coincidence. Sue seemed thoroughly engrossed in her phone. But, gradually, Scarlett became certain that every time she moved, her sister was making some sort of noise - a huff, a disdainful sniff, a chirpy little "hmm."

"Just spit it out, Sue. I'm sick of hearing you sniff every time I move."

"You do move fast, don't you?"

Scarlett set aside the trash bag she was stuffing full of discarded wrapping paper and sat back on her heels.

"What are you talking about?"

"I have friends in Atlanta, Scarlett. India-"

"Oh I am all ears to hear what that bitch has been telling you. She's hated me for years."

"India always was smart."

"What about her?"

"She saw you."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "I'll just have to invite her over for tea," she retorted with exaggerated sweetness as she stood, more than ready to be done with the conversation.

"She saw you at the bar with Rhett."

Scarlett went cold, her lips thinning into a flat line, but she managed to say with studied coolness, "If I'd known she was spying on me, I would have asked her to join us."

"I doubt that would have interested her. She's not the slut you are."

Oh, she would slap Suellen. She would claw her face until she screamed. "How dare-"

"Oh, shut up. Don't play the victim with me. I know you, sister dear. Don't forget you stole my boyfriend."

"Frank-"

"You played the whore with him and he fell for it!"

Scarlett slapped her sister with all her strength. Over Suellen's squeal, she yelled, "If I could give him back to you, I would! And good riddance to both of you!"

"At least he'd be alive!" Sue said, gasping for breath as she pressed a palm to her reddened cheek.

"And miserable, I don't doubt," Scarlett shot back with venom. Sue's words had hit too close to her own guilt.

"As if you ever made him happy. You've never made anyone happy but your own self. You've never cared about anyone else."

"You're a fucking hypocrite, Sue."

"Better than a whore."

Scarlett lunged for her, but Suellen squealed again and slid down off the couch, then scrambled away. She stopped with Gerald's favorite chair between the sisters.

"You didn't waste any time. Were you sleeping with him when Frank was alive?" she asked with a plaintive note that betrayed the real grief buried beneath her animosity, but Scarlett was past caring.

"That's none of your business."

"So yes."

"No!"

"I suppose we'll find out the truth soon enough, won't we?" Sue asked with a pointed look at Scarlett's stomach.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"First Charlie, then Frank. You're collecting babies like - like some sort of sex trophy."

"That's disgusting," Scarlett said, but her words were drowned out by a loud honk from the front yard.

"Will's here. I'm leaving. It's Christmas Day. Maybe you should pray for forgiveness."

"Maybe I'll just pray for you," Scarlett simpered, "Sister dear."

Sue flipped her the bird as she left the living room and Scarlett vigorously returned the gesture. After the front door slammed, she kicked the trash bag and it released a shower of wrapping paper. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but it was already a miracle that no one had interrupted the argument. If she really vented her voice, someone was bound to investigate.

Leaving the mess to be cleaned up - again - later, Scarlett went upstairs, threw herself onto her bed, and screamed into her pillow. Damn Suellen and damn India Wilkes!

The phone in her back pocket buzzed. She fished it out and rolled over.

R-Merry Christmas

Scarlett stared up at the simple message. That was all he had to say after weeks of silence? He didn't even deserve an answer. India Wilkes had seen them at that shitty bar. It was all his fault, somehow. What would he do if she didn't answer? Ignore her or badger her? Neither was appealing.

S-Merry Christmas

The phone buzzed again almost immediately.

R-Are you free New Year's Eve?

Scarlett dropped her phone off the side of the bed and covered her face with one hand. She groaned out loud.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Wade," she muttered through her palm.

"Can I go ride bikes with Joey?"

Scarlett spread her fingers and peeked at her son. Wade stood in her bedroom doorway, hands shoved in his jeans pockets. He had become fast friends with Joey Fontaine and the two boys were inseparable. She had pulled Wade out of school before the Christmas holiday to make this trip, but with Frank's death no one had questioned her decision. Wade had not talked to her about Frank, a conversation that Scarlett had no idea how to begin. He had been even more withdrawn than usual, but she hoped this extended break at Tara was doing him as much good as it did her. The friendship with Joey seemed like a good sign.

"Wear your coat. And a hat."

"I dunno where it is." Wade scuffed his toe against the floor.

Scarlett lowered her hands and sat up. "Take that green hat off my dresser then."

Wade came in and rummaged through the mess she'd left carelessly strewn there - scarves, t-shirts, a bra-

"Here you go!" Scarlett said, moving quickly to the dresser and reaching over his head to grab the hat. Wade pulled it on and the cuff slipped down his forehead. Briskly, Scarlett folded it over in the front. The hat flattened Wade's curls to his skin and she brushed them to one side, out of his eyes. "You need a haircut, kid."

"Aunt Mel cuts it."

"Oh." Scarlett blinked, processed the little revelation, and realized it had been months since she'd taken Wade with her to the salon. Of course Melanie would have noticed, and taken care of it herself rather than trouble Scarlett. Does she ever get tired of being so fucking perfect? "Well you'll see her again next week. She's going to pick you up from school for a few days." Scarlett was working on a list of properties to check out. The budgets were more complicated now that she would have to hire out all the labor, narrowing her options and making the selection process that much more stressful.

Wade shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Can I go? Joey's outside."

"Yeah. Be careful."

Wade's feet pounded away as he ran out of her bedroom and down the stairs. The front door slammed. Her phone buzzed, the vibration sending it lurching across the rag rug.

"Leave me alone, Rhett," she muttered half-heartedly as she went to pick it up.

"What."

"Hi, honey, how are you doing?" Melanie's voice was gentle, a mix of sincerity and the desire not to be thought prying.

Melanie. Was that better or worse than Rhett?

"Hi, Mel. I'm fine."

"Are y'all having a good Christmas at home?"

Scarlett sat down on the bed and, propping an elbow on one knee, rested her temple in her palm. She made polite replies to Melanie's obvious attempts to get a read on her overall mental state. Mel would be utterly shocked to know how shallow her grief really was. Idly, Scarlett wondered if the other woman might even faint if she knew her overpowering emotion was guilt, and why.

"Scarlett, darling, Ashley and I - we just wanted to know if you were doing anything on New Year's Eve? Of course I don't expect you feel up to a party or anything like that but we are so worried about you. We don't want you to be alone. I know you're coming back to town on Saturday, and, well, if you're up to it, we would love to go to dinner with you. Aunt Pitty and Uncle Peter are going to watch Beau and I'm sure they would love to see Wade, and Ella, too, and we were planning to spend the evening with them before going out for a late supper."

Melanie's speech came out in a breathy rush, clearly nervous that her invitation would be misconstrued as making light of Scarlett's supposed mourning.

"I don't know…" Scarlett stalled, weighing the offer. She didn't want to be alone on New Year's Eve, and spending the night with just her children would be as good as. But she hadn't wanted to spend it with happy couples, either - or she could have just stayed at Tara and watched Sue flaunt her new boyfriend. Would it be even worse to spend it with Ashley and his wife? It hadn't been that long ago since she'd thought Ashley was the only man she would ever love.

"Oh, Scarlett, I know it must be so hard for you right now. With the holiday season - we just want to know you're alright, darling. I'll worry so if I know you're alone that night."

Drawing a loose strand of hair between her fingers, Scarlett let Melanie go on a little bit longer. At the very least, it would give her an excuse to turn Rhett down. There was no way she could face him - she would much rather have dinner with the Wilkeses, even with the history there. It was nowhere near as painful at the moment.

"That sounds great, Mel," Scarlett interrupted.

"Oh, wonderful! Just bring the children to Pitty's anytime you want. I think we're going to bring Beau over at 7, after dinner, maybe put in a movie or something and then we'll go out around 9 or 10. Oh, he'll be so happy to see Wade, I think he's been a little bored lately. And we'll all be just thrilled to see you."

"Sure," Scarlett mumbled.

"Give Wade and Ella my love, and your father and sisters, too. They were always so nice to me. Ashley sends his love as well. We're both praying for you, darling."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Mel. See you in a few days."

Scarlett ended the call then flopped back on her bed. She folded her arms over her face, her phone clasped lightly between her thumb and forefinger. It buzzed again and she nearly dropped it, fumbling for a better grip as she sat up.

"Leave me alone, Rhett!" she repeated, seeing the new text message.

R-Scarlett?

S-I can't. I have plans.

R-Fine. Sunday?

Scarlett ground her teeth together. Damn him for being a persistent asshole, if nothing else. Better to get this over with then.

S-OK

R-I'll bring dinner. Is Wade allergic to anything?

S-OK. No. He likes hot dogs

Great. Just great.

* * *

 _This is so late! I'm so sorry! I've been having a succession of first world cell phone problems over the last two weeks. Tried to push for resolution today without luck and then compounded it with a Google account issue. I got so caught up in all that and then had plans after work, I totally forgot about it being Tuesday. It's still Tuesday in California!_


	15. Chapter 15

Scarlett read immediately in Melanie's pale face that she was appalled to find her quiet little dinner restaurant was rowdy with partiers.

"We don't have to stay here, I'm sure we can find someplace else," Melanie began, laying a soft hand on Scarlett's arm. Scarlett shrugged, using the gesture to shake away her touch.

"It's fine, Mel. Where would we find another table on New Year's Eve?"

Melanie continued to chew her lip indecisively as they were led to a table, while perusing the menu, and again after the waitress took their orders. Finally, Ashley leaned over and pulled at her lower lip with his thumb, whispering something in his wife's ear that Scarlett couldn't hear. Scarlett looked away, uncomfortable but no longer even jealous upon witnessing an intimacy that would have once blinded her with rage.

If only she could stop thinking about Rhett. What would she say to him tomorrow? _I'll just have to make him understand that we can't see each other. Once I make him understand that, I'll be able to stop thinking about him. It's just because I'm so worried about tomorrow._

Nothing could come of it. If she hadn't been able to honor Frank in life, she could at the very least not further dishonor him in death. After tomorrow, she could lock Rhett away behind doors that would never open again, just one more aching memory better forgotten.

"Scarlett?"

"Sorry, what?"

Melanie and Ashley shared a glance, then turned with indulgent smiles to her. "What are you going to do when Wade goes back to school on Monday?" Ashley asked.

"I've got a few houses to check out this week."

"Scarlett! You're not going to take all that on so soon, are you?" cried Melanie, wide-eyed.

Scarlett took a sip of water, swallowing the initial retort - _It's been months_ \- aware, and a little ashamed, that that wasn't very much time at all, really. Considered and discarded, too, an uncharitable crack about not being able to stay at home and live off her husband's income. Perhaps Melanie was right about one thing, dinner invitation notwithstanding; she wasn't ready to be out in public. She was too raw, too bitter. Guiltily on edge and ready to snap for no reason, turning on some of the only people in the world who truly did care for her.

"It's really not all that much," she said simply. "I have to go back to work."

Melanie looked stricken. "But darling…"

"Of course," Ashley said quietly, moving a hand over Melanie's. "Let us know if you need any help."

"Thank you for helping with the kids."

Melanie swallowed visibly. "It's the least we can do," she said quietly. "And you know they're both welcome any time."

Though midnight was still two hours away, they started with a bottle of champagne. Just one glass brought a pink blush to Melanie's cheeks and a dewy sort of glow to her brown eyes. Even Ashley looked a little different - more relaxed, maybe. At least it seemed to Scarlett that there were fewer lines marring his fair face. Her mind wandered, barely tracking their quiet conversation until Ashley said her name again.

"Scarlett, do you remember that last pool party?"

Scarlett stared at him. Why did he want to talk about that? "Sure," she said curtly.

Ashley smiled down at his wife. "I already had the ring," he told her, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her ring finger just above the double bands of her engagement and wedding rings. Melanie's inebriated blush darkened. "I seem to recall you weren't particularly impressed," he added, glancing at Scarlett.

"It was - is - a lovely ring."

"Oh, Ashley," sighed Melanie.

 _Gag me,_ thought Scarlett, feeling not at all vindicated that this night was going just as poorly as she had anticipated.

"Do you remember when Stuart and Brent came in with those tiny Speedos?"

Scarlett almost choked on her champagne as sudden laughter gripped her. "Oh, my God. I had forgotten about that. They were so in love with themselves that summer, weren't they?"

Ashley nodded. "They had new suits for every party and every one was tinier and more ridiculous than the last. You know," he added, tipping his glass towards Scarlett, "I do believe they were hoping to catch your eye."

Scarlett rolled hers. "Of course they were," she said, nose in the air.

"And then Cade did that cannonball-"

"Oh!" cried Melanie, animated. "He got me soaking wet!"

Melanie and Ashley began to laugh. Scarlett chuckled a little, but interjected, "I don't remember that."

"How could you not?" cried Mel. "Oh, it was terrible! I had to borrow clothes from Honey."

 _How could I not? I was probably upstairs getting pregnant on your husband's bed._ The brief foray into amusing memory was abruptly over for her. Ashley's company no longer seemed benign, anyone-would-do to keep her from being alone tonight. He was again the symbol of all her poorly planned choices.

Ashley was looking at her strangely now, and Scarlett was eager to avoid any questions about that night. What if he had noticed her missing? "Oh, yeah," she said, pretending to recall, hoping he didn't see through her.

Their food arrived, saving her from any memories she'd rather not confront. When they were alone again, Melanie poked at her salad and asked, "Didn't Tony and Brent get in a fight that night?" Scarlett and Ashley exchanged a look before bursting out laughing.

"I don't remember," they confessed simultaneously. Ashley grinned and added, "Tony, Cade, the twins; at least two of them got into a fight at every party. Joe, too."

"I think it was Tony and Brent that time," Scarlett said. "It must have been one of the twins, because I remember Tony screaming about a 'half-naked bastard.'" She'd been making out on a lawn chair with Charlie Hamilton and the yelling had interrupted them. That's when she'd led Charles upstairs. She stopped laughing.

Melanie and Ashley thankfully didn't notice her mood swing, and she recovered as they continued to reminisce about that pool party, finally moving on to other parties that inspired much safer recollections.

As midnight approached, the trio was well through the second bottle of champagne, and Ashley admonished the women teasingly as he poured the remainder into three tall flutes.

"Save this for midnight," he scolded as Scarlett reached for her glass immediately. She stuck her tongue out at him, sparking a bright giggle from Melanie.

"Oh, what time is it?" cried Mel, digging for her phone. "Will they turn on the ball drop?"

As if on cue, the volume in the restaurant seemed to double as the TVs came off mute. The room quieted until conversation was just a dull murmur merging with the crowd noise being broadcast from Times Square. The wait staff, formal in black and white, passed through the crowd, refilling any empty glasses from cold bottles of champagne.

As the flashing numbers went below thirty, people started to pick it up. By the final ten, the entire restaurant was chanting along with the countdown.

"3 - 2 - 1 - Happy New Year!" There was a squeal from scattered noisemakers and Scarlett turned, ready to toast with Melanie and Ashley.

The happy couple were kissing, utterly engrossed in each other, so Scarlett lifted her flute to her lips and drained it completely. Her phone vibrated, buzzing so loudly against the hard surface of the table that Melanie and Ashley came apart abruptly.

"Sorry," Scarlett muttered, reaching for it. "Leave me alone, Rhett," she sighed under her breath.

R-Happy New Year. I'll be over around 6.

"Is everything alright?" Melanie asked.

"Yeah. Fine." Scarlett lifted her head and saw the question in Melanie's eyes. "It's not the kids or anything," she added to reassure the other woman.

"Oh, good," Melanie said with a smile. "Happy New Year, darling." She raised her glass to Scarlett. Scarlett lifted her own and shrugged.

"Oops."

Melanie laughed, a little awkwardly. "I suppose we had better be going home then," she said, setting her own glass down after a single sip.

Scarlett nodded, though she couldn't help but cast a longing look at the reenergized dance floor as they left.

Five minutes before 6 o'clock, the doorbell rang. Rhett actually showed up with an unlabeled white paper bag loaded with familiar red Varsity boxes. Wade was ecstatic. Scarlett felt now-familiar pangs of guilt as her son danced around Rhett, too giddy to stay still. She'd never thought that Wade, who had been no more than four years old the last time he'd seen Rhett, would have remembered him so well. Rhett's affection for the boy had seemed a little odd to her back then. Men - the men she tried to date - were always pretending fondness for the toddler, but their motives had been transparent even to her. They had seen a path to her through her son, but Rhett had been different - mostly because he had never really seemed interested in her at all. Still he had made a bewildering effort to spend time with Wade, taking him to the zoo, baseball games, to the park. Perhaps she should have been more suspicious, but she had blessed anything that gave her a moment to forget she was a mother and let her pursue her own life without a baby holding her back.

"Uncle Rhett!" Wade cried, and Scarlett, who had been emptying the bag of food, whipped her head around to look at the two of them. Where had Wade picked _that_ up? She did not remember him using it before. Maybe he had, and she just hadn't been able to make sense of it in his garbled toddler talk. But even so, how had he _remembered_ such a thing? Rhett caught her eye above Wade's head and shrugged.

"Go wash your hands, Wade," Scarlett snapped, annoyed with everyone in the room.

"Come on, Uncle Rhett," he said, tugging one of Rhett's hands with both of his. "I'll show you where the sink is."

"Wade," Scarlett started, ready to tell him he did not need to drag Rhett to the bathroom with him, but Rhett spoke over her.

"Thank you, Wade."

"Whatever," Scarlett muttered under her breath. She slapped paper plates down on the kitchen table.

When Rhett and Wade had returned to the kitchen, she had strapped Ella into her high chair and given her a handful of cheese bites, more to entertain her during the meal than to feed her. She had already been fed, and her attempts at feeding herself mostly ended up on the floor.

"Uncle Rhett," Wade said, and Scarlett knew she was already mighty sick of hearing that intimate address. What the hell had she been thinking to let Rhett come over and see the boy when she knew it would be the last time? But she hadn't thought it would mean anything to Wade at all, had never expected him to remember. "Are we gonna go to the zoo and stuff again? I went with school this year. Oh. Last year. I saw a tiger."

Scarlett went cold as she looked at Rhett's blank face across the table.

"Was the tiger your favorite?" Rhett asked, neatly avoiding the prickly question.

Wade nodded. "I'm going to work at the zoo."

"I thought you wanted to be a lawyer like your Dad," Scarlett retorted, knowing even as she said it that she was being too harsh, but too irritated to hold her tongue.

"Yeah I am?" Wade said, the affirmative answer lilting up at the end as he eyed his mother.

"I'm sure you can do both," Rhett interjected smoothly, and Scarlett began shredding her hot dog bun into pieces, wishing it was Rhett.

After the interminable dinner, Scarlett left Wade and Rhett in the living room while she took Ella back to her bedroom to put her to bed. In the dim room she stood over the crib and rubbed her daughter's chest. She had to admit that Ella was a sweet, easy baby, not the least bit fussy. If only she didn't look so much like Frank still.

After Ella was down, Scarlett went to the end of the hall and called Wade away from the toys he was proudly displaying to Rhett. She supervised his teeth brushing and helped him change into his new Christmas pajamas. Tucking him into bed, she asked if he wanted to hear a story. To her surprise, Wade shook his head no.

"No, Uncle Rhett told me a story already."

"Oh did he," Scarlett replied with renewed irritation.

"Did you know his grandpa was a pirate? Was Grandpa, I mean my grandpa, ever a pirate?"

"No, of course not," Scarlett answered curtly. "I don't think Rhett was telling you the truth, Wade. There aren't any pirates anymore."

"Oh." Wade's face flashed disappointment, then he looked at her with interest. "Will we see him again soon?"

"How much do you remember about Rhett?"

"We used to go to the park all the time. And to baseball. Remember the baseball games?"

"I do. I'm just surprised you do."

"I like him, Mom."

"I didn't even know you remembered him." Wade shrugged. "Do you remember that we did not see him very often?" A nod. "Well...I'm just not sure he'll be around much."

Wade bent his head and studied his quilt, his little fingers pulling at the surface. Even Scarlett could tell that he wanted to ask her something, or at least say something, and wasn't sure he should.

"Wade." She put a hand over his. "Stop picking at that."

"Can't you ask him?"

"Ask him - what?"

"To come hang out."

 _Congratulations on a terrible idea, Scarlett._ Why had she ever let Rhett come over to the house? She could have met him during the week, when the kids were at Melanie's because she was supposed to be working. In her eagerness to get this over with - whatever this was, this confrontation; this ending - she had neglected common sense.

"I don't know that he can."

"But you could ask."

"It's time for bed."

Wade's face fell. Scarlett felt the creep of guilt as a cold drip down her spine. She kissed Wade's forehead and drew the covers up. "Are you ready to go back to school?" she asked quietly.

"Sure, Mom."

"And you'll see Aunt Mel again tomorrow. She's picking you and Beau up from school."

Wade nodded, rumpling his curls across the pillow.

"Goodnight, kid," she said, smoothing his hair.

"Night Mom."

Scarlett closed the door behind herself and briefly sagged back against it. That had been unexpectedly difficult, and the night would likely only get worse.

* * *

 _Guest asked, "Did you mean to blend those two scenes?" To which I can say that sometimes I am a shameless pilferer from MM, but I'm not sure I saw the scenes as blended so much as I (drastically) compressed the time between them. "What's the matter, honey?" ties us to the aftermath of Frank's death (the proposal scene, yes; but not quite the proposal yet) and is also one of the few times when Rhett is honest and sweet. I like its heartfelt simplicity. But there's an awful lot in the novel that transpires between Frank's death and "that night," which is not at all in the sequence of this, so the distance between these two points is compressed. I'm (clearly) not strongly tied to echoing the canon exactly but sometimes that callback is used to relate to the source._


	16. Chapter 16

_VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: ADULT CONTENT IN THIS CHAPTER._ It did not work to break this one into separate sections, but I think you'll see it coming.

Additional content warning: laziness. I lifted some lines from Mitchell.

* * *

Scarlett was not blessed with a miracle. When she returned to the living room, Rhett was still there, waiting. He had refilled their wine glasses from dinner. Scarlett gave the wine a dubious glance. She had only had the one glass with her meal. Given past events it did not seem like a good idea to drink with Rhett. Then again, the wine might help numb her to whatever path this conversation would take. She shrugged and grabbed the glass he was holding out. They sat in opposite corners of the couch like duelists taking their positions.

"Your children are lovely."

She looked at him over the rim of her glass, wondering if he was mocking her or not. His blank countenance gave no clue.

"You surprise me," she admitted.

"Why? You know I've always liked Wade."

"I don't understand that."

"I like babies and I like little children, till they begin to grow up and acquire adult habits of thought and adult abilities to lie and cheat and be dirty."

Scarlett was stung by these words that landed a direct hit on her guilty conscience. "Well you would know all about that," she returned sharply. "After all, you were there, too."

Rhett reclined against the side of the couch and slung one long arm over its back. "After all, I suppose I was," he answered.

Scarlett felt ready to choke on her frustration and anger. "Don't you dare blame me, Rhett."

"I'm not entirely sure what blame we are assigning here, Scarlett." Scarlett clammed up, unwilling or unable to be more direct. "You won't enlighten me? Very well. I wonder if it's the kisses or the sex that bothers you more."

Scarlett felt her face go hot. "It was a mistake," she choked out through a tightly clenched jaw.

"Do you really believe that? Tell the truth, not the lie you think is appropriate."

"You can keep calling me a liar and walk right out that door," she snapped, setting her glass down on the coffee table as she came to her feet.

Rhett shoved a hand through his hair. "You are the most difficult person I've ever met."

"The pot's calling the kettle black."

He barked a laugh. "Sit down."

"I'm done talking to you. I want you to leave."

"Damnit, Scarlett," Rhett cursed, setting his own glass down roughly and standing. "I didn't come over here just to play with your son and run along home like a good little boy."

"Why are you here?" she cried, looking up at him, beseeching. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

The corner of his mouth went down as he looked at her. "Is that what you want?"

Scarlett hesitated, a damning pause before she answered. "Yes."

"Now I will say it, and mean it: you are a liar, Scarlett O'Hara."

"How dare you!"

Rhett grabbed her with one strong arm behind her back, threaded the fingers of his other hand through her hair to grip the side of her head and tilt her face up to him. "A liar, and a fool," he said, and swiftly kissed her. His lips were bruising, possessive, and the wild thrill that she had tried to forget surged out of control, obliterating reason. Scarlett pressed her palms to Rhett's abdomen, using him for leverage as she rose onto her toes. She parted her lips, and Rhett groaned into her mouth.

"This isn't over," he rasped, trailing his lips across her cheek to find her earlobe and nip at it. Scarlett gripped his head in both her hands and forced his mouth back to hers, swirled her tongue across his lips until he let her in.

Rhett dropped to the couch, pulling her with him until she straddled his hips. His hands traveled slowly up her legs to her hips and one hand came around to the small of her back. She arched back against his touch then felt warm fingers slide up under the hem of her blouse. He lightly scraped a nail across her abdomen, a teasing prickle of sensation that made her shiver. He tugged at her jeans and she heard the sound of the zipper a moment before she felt the pressure of his fingers slipping into the tight space beneath the layers of denim and plain cotton underwear.

Her tongue plundered Rhett's mouth, curled around his, explored the texture and taste of him - more heady even than the flavor of red wine that lingered in his mouth. His fingertips pressed into her mound, rocking as he tried by increments to gain more access to her melting center. When he brought his hands to the waistband of her jeans and tried to shove them further down her hips, she pulled back.

"We can't," she said, peering over his shoulder at the dark hallway beyond.

"They're asleep," Rhett returned, tracing his thumbs over her hip bones. He kissed her again, his mustache tickling her mouth as his lips moved slowly over hers. Scarlett tried to remember why they should stop, but under this sensual onslaught her mind was splintering again. This hot, leisurely kiss was drowning her, a rip tide pulling her out to dangerous waters. His lips were insistent but unhurried, and she parted her lips, letting Rhett take the lead, surrendering to the darkness and the fire his caress was igniting under skin.

His hands were everywhere, running over the hot skin underneath her blouse. She twisted on his lap, grinding down against the bulge beneath his jeans. The friction failed to satisfy her, and Scarlett's desire regained its aggressive, manic edge. She fumbled roughly with his buttons. When they were all undone, she bent her wrist to press her palm against the hot, soft fabric revealed by the parting jeans, feeling the ridge of his erection with her thumb and the heel of her hand through the thin underwear. Rhett groaned into her mouth, dragged his lips down to her jaw and caressed her throat to her ear. She realized he was talking, muttering all the while he kissed and licked and even nipped at her ear, her throat, the edge of her jaw.

"You drive me crazy," she heard, and her name, and hot words of desire and lust spoken gutturally into the dark curves of her neck. She wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders to keep him close, and felt a tug on the waist of her jeans.

"Stand up," Rhett said, harshly but clearly. Deserted by conscience, Scarlett stood, reaching for the waist of her jeans only to find Rhett's hands already there. More a hindrance than a help, their combined efforts still managed to pull the tight denim down below her thighs before he released her to finish the task. While she kicked the pants away, she watched with brazen fascination as Rhett gripped himself and drew his erection free through the fly of his shorts.

Rhett groaned again as she returned to his lap. "Be quiet," she admonished in a rough whisper, craning her neck to look at the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

"Then kiss me," Rhett said, drawing her mouth back to his.

His hands slipped underneath her blouse and ran up her abdomen to cup her breasts, his long fingers grazing the skin above the edge of her bra. He slipped his thumbs into the cups, then pushed them down, releasing her heavy breasts into his hands. The straps dug into her shoulders but she didn't care. She was too busy with Rhett's mouth, with his body. Her own hands were under his sweater, tracing the muscles in his abdomen and following the rough silk of his hair up and down his chest. The ridge of his erection pressed against her, sliding easily along her wet folds as she ground against him. Rhett squeezed her breasts gently and rubbed his thumbs over her tight nipples.

 _I want you_ , Scarlett thought, rocking her hips, still gripping the remnants of pride, refusing to say those damning words out loud. Releasing her breasts, Rhett shifted beneath her again, then he grabbed one of her hands and pressed a small, cool square into her palm.

"Put it on," he said. His voice was harsh, strained. He bent his head and bit lightly at the curve between her neck and shoulder.

Scarlett tore the condom package open and scooted back on his lap, just enough to give her room to work. With one hand, she unrolled the condom, her hand circling his erection as she slid it all the way down. Rhett let his head fall back against the couch, watching her through eyes too narrowed to be read. She lowered herself onto him and he gripped her hips with both hands.

Scarlett rested her forehead against Rhett's and they breathed together, eyes closed, motionless for a long moment. Their hips rocked at the same moment, as if obeying some invisible signal that had passed between them without her realizing it. Rhett sat up and wrapped an arm about her waist. His hips moved again, sliding beneath hers, nudging her encouragingly. Scarlett lifted up on her knees and sank down slowly, savoring the texture of his jeans against her inner thighs. He was still fully clothed. Her own blouse was smooth and cool against her nipples, the cups of her bra crushed uselessly beneath her breasts.

She moved again, and again, awkwardly at first until she found a rhythm that made her cry out, too loudly. She stopped suddenly, pressing one hand to her mouth and looking down at Rhett with eyes wide with fear. Rhett released her hip and drew her hand away from her mouth, pressing it to his chest and replacing it with his lips.

"Shh," he soothed as he kissed her. His arm tightened behind her back encouragingly. Scarlett kissed him hungrily, giving voice to her desire as she began to move her hips again. He swallowed every sound and returned them with groans of his own. As her hips crashed down on his, she freed the hand he held and gripped his shoulders with both hands, clenching his sweater in her fists. He slid his own hand down and she felt his thumb dive until he found the place where they were joined. Every movement of her hips made his thumb stroke across the bundle of nerves that strained for contact, for release.

"Rhett," she panted into his mouth, aching all over, an almost painful feeling in the nerves that stretched out from her belly and ran under every inch of her skin.

"I'm here, baby," he encouraged her, then kissed her again as suddenly his hips moved, more powerfully than she would have thought possible from beneath her. She cried out, letting his mouth muffle the sound. "Scarlett," he murmured as she subsided. "Scarlett." No one else in the world said her name as he did, nor made foolish terms of endearment sound so achingly tender, a verbal caress.

His thumb moved in slow circles as her hips rose and fell. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, the sweater blunting the bite of her nails. He squeezed his arm behind her back in a rhythm that imitated her own. Panting, she had to pull her mouth away from his so she could breathe. But as her hips jerked roughly against hers, as she surrendered utterly to the intoxication created by his body, his hands, she cried out again. Inchoate sounds, his name, unintelligible pleading. Rhett pulled her close and covered her mouth with his just in time to capture the high-pitched wail she could not contain as release shuddered through her. He continued to kiss her, wildly, his mouth touching the corners of hers and sometimes missing it altogether, landing wet, open-mouthed kisses on her cheeks and jaw. Then his hips snapped up again and his arm went rigid behind her back. He buried his face in her neck, smothering a groan, before slowly relaxing beneath her.

Scarlett sagged against him, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She closed her eyes as fatigue drained her. Dimly, she considered that instead of solving the problem of Rhett Butler, she had only made things worse. But she couldn't think about that now. She would think and worry about that later. For now, she only wanted to sleep, in fact eagerly looked forward to what might be her best night's sleep since the last one she had spent in his arms.

Rhett brushed damp hair away from her ear. "Don't move," he whispered as he slid her off him and lowered her to the couch. Scarlett mumbled an incoherent response and drew her legs up, curling into a ball, as Rhett disappeared down the hall.

She was already more than half-asleep when he returned. Silently, he managed to lay down behind her, so that his chest was against her back, and his own back pressed to the couch cushions. He spread a blanket over her bare legs. She moved them, feeling the rub of denim against the backs of her thighs. Rhett was still fully dressed.

"Are you comfortable," she muttered, not really caring what his answer might be.

"Yes. Go to sleep." His breath was warm against her ear, but she was already asleep.

There was no slow fumble towards consciousness this morning. Scarlett blinked, lifted her hand to rub the sleep from her eyes, and froze.

"Oh God," she whispered, immediately sitting up. "Oh no, no. Rhett. You have to wake up." She hissed, turning to grab his shoulder. She could read the time on the microwave display. After 7 AM; it was a miracle that Wade hadn't already discovered them. She shook him. "Rhett, wake up."

"What time is it?" Rhett asked levelly, appearing to make the transition to wakefulness as swiftly as she had. He didn't look groggy or disoriented as he surveyed her. Self-conscious, Scarlett touched a hand to her hair, felt the tangled knots at the back of it.

"7:15. You have to go."

"Scarlett, we -"

"Not _now_ , Rhett! Wade doesn't sleep late. He'll be out here any second. He can't know you spent the night!"

Rhett sat up and wrapped his hands firmly around her upper arms. "I want to talk to you."

"That's all well and good but _not. right. now_! Don't you understand?"

"I understand that for all I know you're going to turn tail and run back to the country if I let you wiggle out of this."

"You're impossible," Scarlett lamented, springing to her feet. She tugged at the tails of her blouse, yanking it down to cover her bare ass. "I'm not going anywhere but _you are_."

"If you don't want Wade to interrupt us, perhaps you should keep your voice down."

"Get out," Scarlett said coldly.

Rhett stood, rising to his feet in a controlled manner that did not fail to impress her with his sheer strength and power, graceful as a wild panther barely leashed. She felt her face grow hot and she turned away, but Rhett grabbed her arms again. He pulled her against his chest and, bending his head, kissed her.

The hard pressure of his mouth stirred her against her will. She yearned to let go, to sink into his kiss and let it sweep her away, forget everything but the magic of his lips and the warmth of his body. For a moment, she did, sagging against him as her own strength left her. But only for a moment before resolve stiffened her spine. She jerked her mouth away from his.

"We don't have time for that. Do you have everything? All your clothes? You need to _leave_ , Rhett."

"I am not leaving here until you hear me out."

"We don't have time!" Scarlett protested again, a little frantic. She squirmed, trying to free herself from his grasp, but he tightened his hands to hold her in place.

"I have been waiting for you for years, you can spare me a handful of minutes. I have wanted you since that first time I saw you, despite what I said at the time," he said, his mouth twisting in his familiar lopsided smile. Her heart was pounding, beating far too fast. What was he saying? What did he mean by it? Why did he have to do this _now_?

"I don't know what you're talking about Rhett, but if you've done all that waiting I swear to God you can hush up for another five minutes while you leave my house."

The wry smile disappeared as his lips pressed into a thin line. "Damn you, Scarlett-"

"Keep your voice down!" she hissed. "Are you _trying_ to get Wade out of bed?"

His hands hard around her arms, Rhett stared down at her with impenetrable black eyes that made her uncomfortable. She craned her neck to look beyond his shoulder at the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He released her so abruptly that she almost lost her balance. She stumbled and backed a step away.

"I'll leave. But this isn't over, my dear." Rhett went to the kitchen table and grabbed his blazer from the back of a chair. He shrugged into it then pulled something small out of his pocket, dropping it on the table with a quiet thud. "I'm serious, Scarlett. Think about it."

After the door closed behind him, Scarlett yanked her jeans up over her hips, then hurried over to lock it. She rested her forehead against it for just a moment, then turned to survey the living room. Rhett had cleaned up for her after dinner, so only their abandoned, half-full wine glasses were still out. She grabbed them and dumped their contents in the sink. She could hurry through a shower and get dressed so she would be ready when Wade did get up.

Scarlett had gone halfway down the short hallway when she remembered the box Rhett had left. With a heavy sinking feeling in her gut, she went back to the kitchen and grabbed it off the table. With the corners of the box digging into her palm, she paused in the hall to listen at Wade's door. Silence. Scarlett shut her own bedroom door behind her, then closed the bathroom door behind her as well. She crossed to the vanity before finally opening the small black box.

Inside was an elegant gold band with the biggest emerald she had ever seen in person, framed with small sparkling diamonds.


	17. Chapter 17

_Sorry I'm so late, I was out all evening. Don't be late for work, Guest!_

* * *

After Wade had been brought to school, and Ella to Melanie's house, Scarlett parked the car around the corner from the Wilkeses' house and finally texted Rhett.

S-You left a ring.

R-So I did.

S-Was that a proposal?

R-And what if it was?

S-Then it was pretty shitty.

R-Whoever told you honesty is the best policy didn't know you very well.

S-What is that supposed to mean?

R-It means you are far too blunt.

S-Stop talking in circles. I don't understand.

R-I'm not proposing to you in a text message.

S-So it was a proposal?

R-Scarlett. Stop refusing my calls.

S-I don't want to talk right now.

R-Then we have reached an impasse.

The first day, her phone hardly left her hand. She checked it nearly constantly, unable to believe Rhett would leave it at that. The box in her purse jabbed at her hand. At home that night she took it out and dropped it on the top of her dresser.

The next morning, she shoved it in the back of her drawer. A plain black box, innocuous, it should have gotten lost in the clutter she always managed to accumulate. It drew her eye. It irritated her.

"That fucking asshole," she muttered under her breath as she stashed it under a tangle of chemise tanks. She checked her phone again.

A week later, Wade was watching TV on the couch while Ella pulled herself up on the plastic frame of her playpen. Scarlett watched her with one eye while she stirred a pot of spaghetti sauce, waiting for the screaming to start. It was the first step of her favorite game - pull herself up then howl in rage that she was unable to go anywhere from that position. Scarlett would rush over, disengage the tiny fingers from the plastic mesh and set her down on her rear. Ella would crawl - in a circle, across the playmat, maybe only two short little scoots - then repeat. For a baby who had rarely cried, this new hobby was beyond aggravating. Scarlett couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with Frank's death; not that Ella could understand that, but could she feel that someone important had gone missing? Had that soured her previously easy-going temperament somehow?

Before Ella began to howl, Wade suddenly turned around and draped himself over the back of the couch. "Mom?"

"What is it, Wade?" Scarlett asked, sharper than she had intended. The waiting game with Ella was getting on her nerves. Wade dropped his head, looking at her from underneath the long lashes so like her own.

"Nevermind," he muttered. He didn't turn around, but started plucking at the material along the back of the couch. Ella began to cry. Scarlett set the spoon down on the counter and went to scoop up the baby and set her back down again. Ella scooted forward on her butt and grabbed at the playpen again. Scarlett stuck her hands in her back pockets and half-turned so she could keep an eye on Ella and see Wade on the couch.

"Spit it out, Wade."

"You'll be mad."

Scarlett scooped Ella up as soon as her mouth opened and plopped her back on her rear. Ella started to crawl around the perimeter. Scarlett went back to the stove, ruffling Wade's hair as she passed him.

"I'll get over it," she said.

Wade lifted his head, his face all scrunched up. Scarlett pretended to be engrossed in the spaghetti sauce.

"IsUncleRhettComingBack?" he said, so quickly the sounds all smooshed together into one long wood.

Scarlett's fingers clenched around the spoon. "No," she said shortly.

Wade's face was bright red but he must have found some heretofore unsuspected bravery, for he pressed on. "Did you ask him?"

Scarlett pressed her lips tightly together before saying again, "No."

"I didn't think you would," Wade muttered, turning around and slumping back into the cushions. Scarlett stared at the bubbling red sauce. Her phone was within reach, screen-up on the counter. She didn't need to check it. There hadn't been any new messages from Rhett.

Ella screamed again.

Three weeks since she had last heard from Rhett, Scarlett bought a house to flip. At four weeks, she dug the ring box out of her drawer. She set it back on top of the dresser, smack in the middle. A lacy green bra strap curled around it. After eyeing it for a moment, she stomped out of her bedroom in a huff.

Life had a new rhythm now, juggling the two children alone and supervising work on the new project. It was her first flip without Frank. _Without Frank holding me back_ , she thought, then panicked. _I mustn't think that. It's wrong._ Guilt made her nauseous and without even thinking about it, she pulled the green bra over the ring box, hiding it from sight.

When Scarlett went to pick the kids up from Melanie, Wade and Beau were playing in the backyard. The women sat side-by-side on the old couch and watched Ella crawling around Melanie's rug. Scarlett took a deep breath and blurted out, "Has Wade said anything about Frank?"

"What do you mean?"

Scarlett puffed a strand of hair out of her face. "He hasn't said anything to me since Frank died. I don't know if that's - if that's normal, or if I should be worried. I thought maybe…" She looked sideways at Melanie. "Well you know he talks to you more than anyone."

Melanie's cheeks pinked. "Oh!" she exclaimed softly, and covered Scarlett's hand with her own. "Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone else," she said.

"I don't need you to make me feel better about it," Scarlett answered irritably, though she didn't pull her hand away. "Do you think he's doing okay?"

Melanie squeezed her fingers. "He did, uhm, he did ask if he could live here if you died. Oh, Scarlett, I hope you don't mind, I said of course he could. I was just so surprised, I wasn't thinking clearly - I'm sure you have plans-"

Scarlett went cold. She didn't have plans, not new ones. _Shit_. "It's okay, Mel. That - well you're his closest real family, aren't you? That would be perfect."

"You know, darling, that I would take care of Ella, too. I would love her like my own little girl." Scarlett glanced at Melanie and saw she was bright red, clearly embarrassed. Mel would be worried she was overstepping. Scarlett took a deep breath and turned her hand to squeeze Melanie's in return.

"Thank you," she mumbled. She cleared her throat. "But he's been okay? You think he's...I don't know, normal?"

Melanie smiled and kissed her cheek. "We have talked a couple times. I - well, I don't know him like you do, of course," _You know him better than I ever have, I'm sure_ , thought Scarlett, "but I think he'll be just fine. And we're all here for him, he knows that."

Scarlett nodded and turned her head in Ella's direction, but her eyes were unfocused. She'd have to see the lawyer again. Maybe he had mentioned something about updating her own will; in those blurry unfocused weeks before she'd been able to retreat to Tara, she hadn't been paying attention.

"Thanks," she said, and squaring her shoulders, drew her attention back to the present. "For everything, Mel," she added, squeezing the other woman's hand again.

Melanie blushed again and pulled her hand back, only to draw Scarlett into a hug. Scarlett stiffened, returning the embrace awkwardly, struggling to keep her face neutral as Melanie pulled away. Her gratitude still only went so far. Once released, she hurried to scoop Ella up and make their excuses. The women went to the back door to call the boys in, but they were both so grubby Scarlett told Wade to just meet her in front. Melanie laughed as she hustled Beau into the kitchen and ordered him to take off his clothes and leave them on the linoleum. Ella waved "bye-bye" over Scarlett's shoulder as they left.

"Sorry," Wade mumbled as he climbed into the car next to Ella's carseat. Scarlett looked at him from the other side as she clipped Ella into the seat.

"You can help me clean it out later," she said, trying to tease, but Wade hung his head. "It's okay," she added, lowering her voice. Wade shrugged and turned to look out the window.

That night, Scarlett lifted the bra that had been covering the little black box and flung the bra into the corner of her bedroom.

It had been their bedroom. Scarlett had emptied it of any trace of Frank as soon as they had come back from Tara. It was the only way she had been able to move back in and not go back to sleeping on the couch. He had been gone four months and it was as if the two years in the house hadn't even happened. They'd hardly even hung any family photos - one wedding photo, now in a box. A handful of photos of Frank with Ella, only one with Wade, also in the box. Scarlett sat on their bed - her bed - and stared at the small black shape on the dresser. It had been four months since Frank's death. Only four months?

Unanalytical, she tried now to examine herself and felt frustrated as insight seemed just to evade her attempts to bring it into the light. There was Frank and her less-than-honest motivation for turning his affections away from Suellen. She hadn't felt particularly guilty about that. Not until later, when the affection she had created for Frank began to struggle under the weight of their daily lives, the little annoyances and constant struggles. Once the veil had been torn, and she had forced herself to confront her truly mercenary motives, then the guilt had surfaced. She had only added to an already solid foundation when Rhett had come back into her life. And Rhett...the black box taunted her. Consumed by her guilt, she hadn't even bothered to consider Rhett's side. If she had, _marriage_ would not have been one of her guesses. How could he do this to her!

A sudden thought paralyzed her - what if Rhett had left Atlanta again? He wouldn't do that, he couldn't turn around and sell that house she had worked so hard on. That renovation was all caught up in everything else; if he sold it, somehow it would feel like she had betrayed Frank for nothing.

Scarlett flopped back on the bed. Even she could see how that was a twisted thought. But one thing stood out to her, twisted and wrong though it might be: she missed Rhett. Before she could think around it, before pride could stop her, she rolled onto her stomach and reached for her phone.

S-What the hell is an impasse?

Scarlett chewed on her lower lip, biting back a smile as she imagined his eyebrow lifting just _so_. Rhett loved any chance to show off as a human dictionary. It was utterly obnoxious, of course.

R-I'm sorry, who is this?

S-don't be an asshole

R-Ah, Scarlett! Your always elegant choice of words is familiar.

S-You left something here.

No answer. Scarlett kicked her feet on the mattress. She checked her email. She opened a game and closed it again before it had even finished loading. Nothing. She gritted her teeth.

S-I have to get Wade from Melanie's house by 6 tomorrow. Are you free before then?

R-I'll be home at 4:00.

Scarlett knocked on Rhett's front door just after 4 o'clock. Rhett let her in, still dressed for work in a black suit and dark red tie. In the middle of the living room she thrust the ring box back at him. He ignored it, his eyes never leaving her face. Scarlett took a deep breath.

"Why did you do this?"

"Because it was clear you weren't going to listen to me. If you recall, you were rather frantic to get me out of your house."

Scarlett paced away, letting the box fall on the coffee table. "Why?"

"I said -"

Scarlett waved her hands at him in a quieting gesture. "No, not that. Whatever. You left the ring because I kicked you out, fine. But...why? In the first place?"

Rhett shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and they bulged with his fists, but his face was bland and his eyes dark and blank.

"You mean, why do I want to marry you," he said, without question.

"Yes," she exhaled, forgetting to breathe air back into her straining lungs.

"Because I love you, Scarlett."

"Oh, God," she moaned, sinking down in a corner of the long sofa. She recoiled as Rhett came to his knees before her.

"My dear Scarlett," he proclaimed, "It cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful-"

"Stop! Stop that," she pleaded, pushing weakly at his shoulders.. "This isn't funny, Rhett."

Rhett abandoned his comedic speech and caught her hands in his. "I am asking you to marry me."

"You are joking."

Without releasing her hands, Rhett moved from his knees to sit beside her on the couch. "Something else is the matter. What is it?"

"What will people think?" Scarlett whispered.

"Do you care what they will think?"

Scarlett nodded. "It won't look right, marrying so soon after Fr - marrying so quickly. People will talk…"

Rhett bent a long, hard look at her, and as always Scarlett felt he could see right through her. She didn't know whether to be relieved this time, or nervous and resentful.

"You feel guilty."

"It was wrong and you know it."

Rhett squeezed her hands. "I regret that I dishonored your marriage on two occasions. Two, Scarlett," he said clearly, his black eyes piercing her. "You were no longer married when you spent the night here, nor when I-"

"It shouldn't have happened," she insisted, looking down at their clasped hands.

"Are you sorry?"

"What a question!" Scarlett cried, throwing off his hands and standing up.

"Answer it."

"No, alright? No, I'm not sorry."

When Rhett did not respond, Scarlett stopped pacing and peeked at him from the corner of her eye. She had expected some sort of response. "I'm not sorry," she repeated, and marveled at the simple truth.

Finally, Rhett spoke. "So you don't feel sorry for what happened. That's why you feel guilty, because you know you haven't done what you think the world will expect. Scarlett, don't fly off the handle here, but when has that ever stopped you?"

Scarlett crossed her arms and scowled down at him.

"I'm not sorry," Rhett said. "Nor do I feel any burden of guilt. I am just not a good enough person, I suppose, for I cannot bring myself to regret what happened. That's part of why I like you," he added, one corner of his mouth going down in his familiar lopsided grin. "We share the same moral failings."

Scarlett bristled . "How dare you-"

Rhett surged to his feet and interrupted the weak protest with a kiss. "I love you, Scarlett," he said, his mouth so close to hers that she could feel his mustache against her skin as he spoke. "I love your morals, your beauty, and your hard and clever mind. Your whole tempestuous self. I assure you, it is far better to be loved because of your flaws than in spite of them." A hard look came into his eyes as he said this, fleeting and utterly at odds with the resonant emotion in his deep voice.

"Rhett..." she murmured, her own mind churning.

"Forget what people say. We'll take a honeymoon so long they'll forget all about us."

"But Wade and Ella…"

"We'll take them with us." Scarlett scrunched up her face, a gut reaction to that absurd idea. Rhett laughed. "Oh, so you'd rather face the gossips than take the children on our honeymoon? Fair enough."

"Rhett, I haven't said I'll marry you."

Though her voice was soft, something in Rhett seemed to snap. His arms went around her hard, and she felt immediately the surging warmth and drowning darkness that had already been her downfall. "You will, damn you," he growled, before he kissed her. There was no gentle arousal to passion, but a fierce, demanding kiss that set her to trembling in his arms, clinging to him for support even as she felt the tremor in his own body against hers.

"Marry me," Rhett demanded, but forebore an immediate answer with another kiss. "Say yes," he insisted, his mouth barely leaving hers.

"Please-"

Rhett shook his head and she felt his lips brush across hers. "No. Say yes."

Scarlett pulled back a little to look up into his eyes. They were wide, and blazing with more passion than he had ever openly revealed to her.

"You really mean it," she said, stupidly. Rhett laughed tersely.

"Yes, I mean it."

"What-"

Rhett shook her. "What nothing. There is only one word I want to hear from you right now. Say it."

Suddenly giddy, Scarlett dimpled up at him. "It."

Rhett's brows drew together in a mockery of anger. Releasing one of her arms, he pinched her rear sharply. "You're going to be unbearable now, aren't you," he accused.

"Yes," she said, her mouth relaxing into a more heartfelt smile. She leaned against his chest, tilting her head up for another kiss.

Rhett lowered his head, then stopped. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes, Rhett. Yes, I will marry you. Kiss me."

It was a novel feeling, having her command obeyed by Rhett Butler. He clasped her in his arms and lifted her off her feet to kiss her, and she wrapped her own arms around him to steady herself in his embrace. A dizzy giddiness overcame her and she clung to him, his strong form anchoring her as the room spun around them. His lips were gentle now, coaxing her to respond, his tongue teasing her until she deepened the kiss of her own accord. He was so perverse - always unexpected, always leading her out onto bridges she feared would be cut apart beneath her - but there to catch her, all the same.

She felt cushions giving way beneath her knees, softly forcing her legs to bend in a familiar sensation, reminiscent of the last night they had been together. Her skin went hot as she remembered and she broke the kiss, burying her face in Rhett's neck. He smelled of cologne, tobacco; for once, not whiskey or wine. They were both utterly sober. No more excuses behind which Scarlet could hide, or use to justify her actions. She felt her hair stir, then the warm sensation of his lips against her scalp.

"I love you," he said, so quietly, perhaps thinking she wouldn't hear him. Scarlett inhaled and thought of Rhett on the patio the previous spring, and his knee hot against hers through their jeans, his jaw rough under her lips in a dark bar - and other memories that went with these. The way he had listened to her without judgement, calmed her anxieties, and been so utterly unlike himself - or the self she had assumed him to be - when she had needed him, replacing mockery with empathy. Truth washed over her as a gentle wave, easy to accept, and she did so without question, as a child accepting a gift.

"I love you, too," she mumbled into his neck and felt his arms tighten around her. Then he gripped her biceps again and lifted her so he could look into her eyes. "You're going to bruise me," she grumbled, shimmying, "if you keep manhandling me like this."

"I doubt it." He bent a leering look on her that left no doubt even in her stubborn mind as to his innuendo. She stuck out her tongue, and he chased it back into her mouth with a deep kiss. "Say it again," he said, pulling back to be able to see her clearly.

"I love you," she repeated, bracing herself against his chest. Scarlett could feel his heart pounding under her palm and it reassured her that she was not alone with the almost painful beat thudding in her own chest. His eyes were fierce and bright, intense without the impenetrable hardness that she had seen so often - emotion writ nakedly in his gaze and upon his face. She had only a glimpse before his lips were on hers again, insistently parting her own, until she was shaking under the onslaught of feeling his kiss roused in her. She had been a fool to think she could have walked away from this. "I feel faint," she said softly, pulling away and gulping deep breaths of air to fill her lungs.

Rhett pressed her to his shoulder and they sat quietly for a long moment, until her breathing had calmed, though she could still feel the hard beat of his heart against her own chest. She grumbled in wordless protest at the disruption as Rhett moved beneath her, leaning forward slightly, holding her now with one arm.

"You don't want to take it back?" he asked.

"What?" Scarlett responded, confused. Take what back? Rhett jostled her in his arms, nudging her to look down. She saw the open ring box cupped in his large palm. She reached for it. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed.

Rhett laughed. "I shall flatter myself that it is not just greed that makes you say that."

Scarlett made a pretty pout, a practiced move she had often used to get her own way, but this time there was a flash of real hurt in her eyes as she looked up at him. Did he doubt her? "Don't be mean," she said.

Rhett's dark eyes were somber as he grasped her hand in his and slid the cool gold band onto her ring finger. "You'll have to get used to all my bad habits," he teased. "But isn't it worth it?" He rubbed her finger just above the ring.

"Hardly!" she scoffed, clutching her hand to her chest. "You are a - well, you are-"

Rhett laughed, drowning out her futile attempt to attach an epithet to him. _Asshole_ just didn't seem appropriate now. Though, knowing Rhett, that probably wouldn't last.

He moved so quickly it took her breath away, and the next thing she knew she was beneath him on the long couch. His mouth was warm and his body insistent as he pressed her into the firm cushions. If all his apologies would be like this, though…

"Yes," she said, as his mouth trailed along her jaw to the vulnerable, sensitive skin below her ear. Yes, it was worth it. Yes, she would marry him. Yes, she loved him.

* * *

 _With apologies to Margaret Mitchell for lifting a rather large quote. Thank you for writing such an expansive novel that has provided me with such a wonderful playground. I own not a drop of her content nor characters, but I can't seem to leave them alone._

 _That's it for this one, but I should have something small to share soon, and many other things in the hopper. Thank **you** for reading and reviewing!_


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